Heissatopia

Swimming Awards Banquet

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 03:55:00 +0000

This afternoon we got to go to Benjamin's swimming awards banquet. He's had a really great season and has improved so much, so it really was no surprise when he was called up as the most improved swimmer on the silver team.

"And while he's up here, Ben's also our practice champ. Ben is always there, ready to work hard—even asking for more work!" Coach Harrison told everyone.

He's on task, he's cheerful, he never complains, he helps others stay on task...he's just great!

He looked shocked that he was chosen for two awards, but his friends were less surprised.

When they heard the "practice champ" award being announced for the gold team, his friends on the silver team leaned over to him and said, "That'll be you!"

And they were right!

We had pizza for dinner and cake for dessert—a cake that was so very blue! Everyone was walking around with blue lips!

Here's a picture of all the awards he got this season: 11 first place ribbons, 6 second place ribbons, 2 third place ribbons, and 3 fourth place ribbons. His "Most Improved Award" says Benjamin "achieved 14 time drops and a 10% improvement" over the course of the season and his "Practice Champ Award" says "worked consistently hard in practice and consistently came to practice."

We're proud of all the hard work he's put into his swimming this year (he recently joined the 100-mile challenge last week and is hoping to complete that over the summer—I've no doubt he will).

He's got one more month of conditioning with the Fowler Fins and then it will be back to the Rapid Barracudas for summer swim team!

Stress basket

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 02:50:00 +0000

Before we got married, my mother warned Andrew that I was, and I quote, a "stress basket," and that he'd have to handle me with care at certain times (because I was a "little ball of nerves" or something like that).

I was like, "I don't think so. I'm perfectly chill."

My mom just rolled her eyes.

Andrew assured her he could handle it me.

First of all, my mom was right (of course) and second, Andrew's been great.

He quickly learned how to notice when I'm feeling overwhelmed and either helps me work through things or simply tucks me in for a nap (I get very tired when I'm stressed out).

It could be said that I'm stressed out now.

I have so many final projects due and life is going about a million miles an hour and my brain is...well...

Let's just say that I was talking to my mom this evening and she was mentioning a few projects she was planning to get her basement ready for Rachel to move in. There's no air conditioning down there, so she's trying to get that installed, and then put in some new windows that are a little more weather-proof, and fix the closet in the room Rachel will be in...and...

My mom was explaining all of this and said, "I think that would be a good project to do the first week in May because Josie will be gone as well, so there will be no one in the basement, and..."

"Oh!" I said with genuine interest. "Where's Josie going the first week in May?"

My mom looked at me.

I looked at her.

She looked at me.

"Josie is going to...Austria..." my mom said slowly, almost patronizingly.

"Austri...oh!" I said, everything coming clear. "I am going to Austria with Josie the first week of May!"

"Yes," my mom said. "You are!"

"I haven't even thought into May yet!" I moaned. "And it can't be the first week of May, can it? I have finals until May 4!"

"Josie flies out May 3. You fly out May 5..."

Who in the world planned this trip?

Couldn't have been me.

(It was definitely me.)

So, anyway, that's just a little snapshot of how well my stressed-out brain is functioning.

Shipshape and Bristol fashion!

Saying Goodby to Grandpa and Darla

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 06:18:00 +0000

Grandpa spent his first day of retirement taking the kids bowling. It was the first time for several of the children because we haven't gone bowling here. I honestly couldn't remember why we hadn't just taken the kids bowling...until Reid told us how much it cost. Let's just say "Private Equity Bowlero Ruining Bowling" isn't a sensational title. I was fully expecting the fees to be around $5 per person per game...maybe even $10 (it's been a while since we've been bowling). I was not expecting round $30 per person—talk about exorbitant!

But the kids had fun.

And we remembered why we have never gone bowling here.

Miriam finished with her finals on Wednesday, so she was available to go bowling with everyone. I asked her to be my photographer (Andrew and I stayed home to work).

Here's Benjamin:

Zoë:

Alexander (the poor little guy could hardly lift the ball):

And Phoebe, who used both gutter rails and this little ball ramp:

And here's everyone posing...somewhere (they're looking kind of sweaty so I assume this picture happened after the park):

It was a full Grandpa Day, and with good reason: Grandpa is leaving for Utah tomorrow (and Darla will fly out about a week later). So today after Miriam got back from taking the ACT, we drove up to Grandpa and Darla's house to have one last BBQ (that's "barbie" in Australian), play some games, and say goodbye.

Here we are getting a game of Swoop started:

And here's Miriam and Grandpa sorting cards afterwards (Miriam is driving out to Utah with Grandpa—they're going to have fun together, I can tell. Miriam is already cracking up over Grandpa's jokes):

Here we are saying goodby to Grandpa and Darla for 18 months (or so):

The kids wanted to take a funny picture more than anything and immediately went into full goofball mode when they were given permission by our photographer (Sam, one of Darla's daughters who is here visiting from California):

Benjamin very nearly pulled me off balance and into the bushes, but we survived to tell the tale. It looks like a few more of us also lost their balance during silly time. Silly us.

I honestly can't remember if I ever explained where Grandpa and Darla are going on their mission.

My brain feels like it's about ready to explode. So bear with me.

Grandpa and Darla were first called to the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region, with details on the exact location to be determined (TBD, or as Rachel might say, TBA: To Be Atermined).

They got word in January, I believe, that they would be going to serve as volunteers (not missionaries, per se) in Amman, Jordan.

We were very excited for them. We love Jordan!

And then...the whole conflict with Iran began and a great shuffling of church volunteers in the MENA region, getting some out of pressing danger, filling gaps here and there...and rather playing it by ear while bombs were (are?) dropping. So, long story short, the slot in Jordan got filled by volunteers evacuating from other places.

So Grandpa and Darla were reassigned to the UAE somewhere.

But that's been on hold for a while since...you know...everything that's going on with Iran right now.

Since they've already rented out their house for the duration of their mission, they still needed to start their mission on the previously-established timeline. So they'll be serving at headquarters in SLC for a while...and the rest of their mission will be a surprise!

Dentists and Diners

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 04:37:00 +0000

Andrew took two of the kids to the dentist on Monday and I took three of the kids to the dentist today. Between the seven of us we had zero cavities! I'm always glad when that happens because I don't really enjoy going to the dentist.

But sometimes we have to do things we don't enjoy, right?

(Hopefully Rachel is brushing her teeth, too.)

Phoebe went first and she asked if I could stay with her, so I sat nearby while she had her cleaning and examination. She did so well—she's come a long way from when she needed me to hold her on my lap while all the dental assistants blew bubbles and sang songs to try to get her to stop screaming.

Zoë was called back next so that she'd be ready to sit with Phoebe by the time I was called back. Soon after Phoebe and I had returned to the waiting room to sit with Alexander, he was called back. And then Zoë joined us in the waiting room, and finally it was my turn.

The kids read and drew while I was having my teeth cleaned. And then we headed home, all stocked up with tubes of chapstick and mini toothpaste. Phoebe was in heaven!

We got other things in our goody bags as well. Some dental floss that I just don't like. And new toothbrushes, which we never use—because we have electric toothbrushes, you see?

Those things are 100% the reason we are getting fewer cavities at our house. I swear by them.

Phoebe, of course, wanted to open her toothbrush right away because it was a princess toothbrush. We have a deal that she can brush her teeth in the morning with her fancy princess toothbrushes (she has a whole collection) but at bedtime she has to use her electric toothbrush.

Zoë was so flattered that they finally gave her an adult toothbrush (she's been giving Phoebe her princess toothbrushes for a couple of years now).

"It's like they finally realized that I'm 10!" she said. "I'm hardly a child anymore! I don't need a princess toothbrush!"

Along those lines, it is spring break and the children are living large. Zoë was invited to go to Fernbank Museum with our next door neighbour yesterday. I'm heard a lot about Fernbank but we've never gone because...well, for starters, it is well outside of my driving bubble. And then there's the ticket price (about $25 per person, or $270 for a membership...which would be worth it if I felt we could get there). We simply felt priced out for the effort it would take to get there (which is kind of sad because we practically lived at the Museum of Life and Science when we lived in Durham...because we had a pass and because it was just 10 minutes from our house).

Anyway, we've never been, but Zoë got to go! And she reported that it was pretty cool.

These friends also took her out to dinner on the way home from Fernbank. When they asked if they could/should feed her before bringing her home, I left it entirely up to them, and they opted to feed her since everyone was hungry. I was absolutely expecting like...Chick-Fil-A or something...but they went to Outback Steakhouse.

Have I mentioned that we never go anywhere?

We never go anywhere.

My children have never stepped foot in a formal dining establishment the likes of Outback Steakhouse!

Zoë hardly knew what to do with herself (my bad), but she studied the menu and passed the test (except that she went ahead and ordered dessert with her food because she thought she was supposed to and then was embarrassed...but it all worked out).

Anyway, she brought home this Joey Menu (for kids 10 and under) as a memento.

Miriam was looking at it over breakfast this morning and she goes, "Aussie Fries? Why would a Texan restaurant serve Aussie Fries?"

"Miriam," I said in a very poor Australian accent. "Outback Steakhouse is an Australian restaurant, mate!"

"Well, that explains the koala," she whispered with a nod.

"What I want to know about is the Grilled Chicken on the Barbie," Zoë said. "What is that even about? Like...grilled chicken...on a Barbie. Just...why?"

"So, in Australian, barbie is actually short for...barbecue," I informed Zoë.

"Oh! That makes much more sense. I shoulda maybe gone with the chicken then...because I like chicken...but I was like...chicken on a Barbie?! And that was kinda weird, so..."

Anyway, she's basically in the too-old-for-princess-toothbrushes, too-young-to-know-multiple-meanings-of-barbie stage of life. So probably she's growing up great!

The kids' trip to DC! (March 8-13)

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 03:23:00 +0000

Before Grandpa and Darla got married, Grandpa had talked about taking Benjamin and Zoë up to Washington, DC, as he had done with Rachel and Miriam. Last year was the year he decided he was going to do it, but just before it was time to head out...Grandpa had a medical emergency. So the trip was postponed for six more months, but just before it was time to head out...the government shut down.

So the trip was postponed again until March of this year, a kind of final hurrah before Grandpa and Darla leave for their mission (which has been a whole nother circus of events requiring patience and adaptability because they were first assigned to Jordan and then to the UAE somewhere and now to...nowhere in particular...but definitely in Salt Lake for a while). Anyway, they did finally make it on their DC trip.

Grandpa sent me this itinerary:

Sunday, March 8	9:00 a.m. church Depart for Brad and Nancy’s House
Monday, March 9	Court House at Appomattox Marine Corps National Museum
Tuesday, March 10	Air and Space Museum National Archives Ford’s Theater, where Lincoln was shot Peterson house, where Lincoln died American History Museum Arlington National Cemetery
Wednesday, March 11	Walk the Mall to see the following monuments: Washington World War II Vietnam Lincoln Korean War Holocaust Museum Library of Congress tour Supreme Court US Capitol
Thursday, March 12	Mount Vernon, Home of George Washington Arrive at Clark and Lynnea’s house
Friday, March 13	Depart Clark and Lynnea’s house Arrive back home

And Darla sent me pictures every day!

Benjamin and Zoë have both been working on writing about their adventures, but I will share some extra pictures here and caption them to the best of my abilities...

Zoë, Grandpa, and Benjamin in front of the Capitol Building:

Benjamin and Zoë:

Probably at Quantico:

Grandpa, Benjamin and Zoë in front of the Washington Monument:

With Darla and the Capitol Building (?) in the back:

Mount Vernon (maybe):

The Lincoln Memorial:

The other side of the Lincoln Memorial:

Zoë...somewhere:

The crew:

Zoë at the Jefferson Memorial (maybe?):

A war memorial (I think the WWII memorial, where we lost Miriam in DC in 2012):

The Library of Congress:

They had a fabulous time with Grandpa and Darla and our house felt so quiet without them. We're glad they could go on this adventure!

Benjamin's DC report (a guest post by Benjamin)

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 03:05:00 +0000

This is the first time I went to Washington DC with the capability to remember things. I have gone before, most notably in 2014, and 2016. I also went in November of 2012, but I was a tiny baby then so I really don’t remember anything at all. Rachel and Miriam have taken this trip before with Grandpa. Their record walking distance was ten miles. We did not walk ten miles in the blazing hot sun as Rachel and Miriam did, but we did walk 6 miles the first day and 8 the next, which brings our total to 14, which is higher than theirs. This trip was the third time we planned out the dates. We had originally decided to go in September of 2025, but Grandpa had surgery and couldn't go. The second time we planned it, the government shut down for 43 days–both breaking the previous record and closing all the museums we wanted to go to. This third time, however, was not postponed, so we were able to go.

Washington D.C is our nation's capital. It's where the seat of government sits and it's where many people live in and travel to. It was founded as “Compromise Capital”, as the government wanted a place to be outside of an actual state. My Grandpa said that L'Enfant Plaza is called that because it has so many museums and kids love going to museums. Which is true but I think he was joking because it was actually named after the architect who designed the city on land that New York and Maryland donated whose name was Pierre Charles L'Enfant. It is built on the Potomac for many reasons. The first being that no one wanted that land because it was swampy and gross so that's why the states donated it. And the second is that it helps with defense because an attacking army can only really invade from one side. That second reason however is posing problems as the city expands as it makes commuting harder for those who live across the river. As there are only so many bridges and metro lines for commuters to use to get to work. Speaking of the metro, we used it to get around everywhere. So I will talk about it next.

The Metro

The metro in Washington DC is not the best in the world that goes to multiple ones in Asia but it tries to be clean and a thing that people want to use. We mostly used the blue line train because it's the one that we needed but we did use orange and silver sometimes as well. I loved using the metro and not touching the car for a week. I have many funny stories but the best one is when Zoë got stuck behind the gate. She swiped her card and then grandpa said Zoë! Over here she went over and tried to swipe her card on the other side but she could not go to the other side twice so grandpa had her go in front of him and he succeeded! But right as she went through it closed on him! And so he had to hand Darla his card so she swiped it on one side and then gave it to him and then he swiped it on the side that he was on and finally went through. We then went up the stairs and to the spy museum.

Lincoln

Lincoln was our country's 16th president. He was the first one assassinated and has left a mark on our history.The Lincoln memorial uses stone from all across the country to symbolise how Lincoln brought unity to the states. The terrace walls and lower steps comprise granite blocks from Massachusetts, the upper steps, outside facade, and columns contain marble blocks from Colorado, the interior walls and columns are Indiana limestone, the floor is pink Tennessee marble, the ceiling tiles are Alabama marble, and the Lincoln statue comprises 28 pieces of Georgia marble. The statue is 19 feet tall and one hundred and seventy five tons. The Gettysburg address is carved into the wall on the right of the Lincoln statue and his second inaugural address is carved into the wall on the left of the statue.

The entire monument is based on the Parthenon in Ancient Greece, which was once the largest temple of Athena in the world.

The Gettysburg address is one of Lincoln's most famous speeches, and it's not even that long! The reason for this is that he was not the main speaker of the day at Gettysburg after the battle. That honor was given to senator Edward Everett who had an impressive two hour long speech compared to Lincoln was invited to give a few remarks at the end hence the 2 minute Gettysburg address.

He was the president who saw the end of the war that took more American lives than all of the other wars before and after this one combined. A range of 620,000 to 750,000 dead. This number is around 2% of the population of America at the time. And most of the soldiers that died did not die in battle! They died in their camps because of poor hygiene and disease.

Lincoln loved theater and often visited Ford's theater to watch the plays that were performed there. This habit of his was sadly used against him by John Wilkes Booth who had performed in the theater before, while Lincoln was watching. The play that Lincoln saw Booth play in was Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and had, while delivering some of the most threatening lines in the play, had stared up at where Lincoln was in the presidential box. Lincoln was shot by a small one round pistol which had a bullet that weighed less than an ounce. After Booth shot Lincoln, he jumped out of the box and onto the stage, breaking his leg in the process. After Lincoln was shot he was brought to the Peterson house across the street where he was treated until he died.

Washington

Washington was our country's FIRST President. The Washington monument was Designed by Robert Mills. It took more than 40 years to finish, which is a long time! The Monuments marble blocks are held together by just gravity and friction; no mortar was used in the process. It is five hundred and fifty five feet tall, but its original plans are for it to be 600 ft tall but the army engineer in charge of the build Thomas Lincoln Casey senior scaled it down because of weight restrictions and the obelisk formula which states that the height must be 10 times the width of the base and the base is 55 and a fifth feet tall.

There is a law that no building in Washington D.C can be higher than the Washington monument just like Paris with the Eiffel tower. When you look at the Washington monument you can see two different types of stone. This is because they had to stop construction during the civil war and the quarry that they were using before was compromised or not able to be used after the war ended. So they transitioned to a different one and the stone was a different shade of white.

George Washington is one of my favorite U.S presidents. I even dressed up as him for halloween once!

Mount Vernon

On the way back we stopped at Mount Vernon and it was cold wet and rainy after we left it even started to snow! We got to it early and because it was rainy and cold we did not do our garden tour so we had to sneak into the tour before our 12:30 one which was not that hard all we had to do was ask if we could. Mount Vernon is built on the Potomac river a couple miles away from the main city of Washington DC. It's where Washington went after his two terms as president. In fact one European noble was so impressed that Washington went back to farming after leading the country that he tore a fireplace out of his home and sent it to him. This fireplace now sits in the green room of the manor. Stepping out of the green room you go to the patio where there is a wonderful view of the Potomac river. We looked out at the Potomac for a little bit and then went back inside of the house because it was cold! We went upstairs and saw the Lafayette bedroom and Washington's own room! After going through the house we explored the grounds and that's when it started to wintry mix and it was getting miserable outside so we decided to quit and went back to the car. On the way back we went back inside and saw this amazing lego Mount Vernon:

Which I thought was so cool! I enjoy looking at the miniatures and the models in museums but having one in lego was amazing. I also enjoyed the ones in the congress buildings visitor center.

Congress, national archive, and the supreme court

We visited these very cool places in a very short amount of time so I will talk about them in one section. The shortest visit in this section was the supreme court building as we only walked outside of it as there was a police fence in front we went there after the library of congress which was cool to see. It was just a very ornate library but we saw the place where the main characters ran away from the police in national treasure two! There is a door at the big front desk in the middle. We were able to go into the congress buildings visitor center which had miniatures that depicted the congress building throughout the ages showing how it grew and the area around it grew from a small town to a bustling city. After looking at those we may have not gone where we were supposed to go and went down into an area that had a a lot of statues but it was fine as we didn't get arrested.

The national archive was one of the places we visited on the first full day that we were in DC along with the air and space museum and i think that it was pretty cool that we got to see the declaration of independence and all of our founding documents in the rotunda even though that's all that we saw. All of the architecture in DC is based on Ancient Greece… well most of it and it was cool to see things that i have heard of in Percy Jackson and ancient myths.

Spy Museum

The spy museum was my favorite museum of the entire trip. We walked in and went up huge cargo elevators up to the actual museum from the ground floor. Once we got our fake identities and missions we watched a short video that had actual spies in it talking about what they do. Then we went on to the first part of the museum. The first room talked about spies throughout history and what traits made them good spies, such as loyalty, courage, and the ability to know when to make your leave quietly. At the spy museum there are different interactive stations where you can swipe your spy card to use skills that you learn throughout the museum to complete your mission. I was good at most of the interactive stations except for the tech lab. did not make the correct gadget on the first try. My gadget was an audio recorder in a portable charger.

My favorite station was the coded message station where I had to decode a Jefferson cipher to get a very important piece of information pertaining to my mission. Which I cannot disclose as I am still sworn to secrecy. I did a pretty good job not getting arrested during the OPS station where I had to find things that could compromise the mission such as cameras and too much security. I only took 2 pictures during the entire self guided tour which is 100% my fault but the pictures that i did take are also of the same thing. A big balloon tank like that which was used during the ghost army mission in world war two. As you can see it would be confusing for an enemy airplane flying overhead if you saw several of these mixed in with normal tanks as well. It would make your force seem much bigger than it actually is. This tactic was a form of spying/espionage. However this tactic would not have been as effective if it had not been for for so called “double agents” who worked for one side and the other. Although normally they are biased towards their home country. These double informants told lies or half truths to the enemy, normally to disguise true troop movements. This was used most notably during D-day when many spies told the Germans that British and American troops were moving to attack the Pas-de-Calais region in fact during D-Day the Germans thought that it was just a diversion so they sent more troops to Pas-de-Calais to make sure that it was safe!

Air and Space Museum

The national air and space museum was really really cool. I probably took the most pictures at this museum. It's probably only rivaled by the American history museum. Right as you walk in you see the test eagle lander. The one that did not go to the moon. It looks REALLY sketchy, like it's held together by duct tape. You can see which half stays and even the parts that keep it together! The hatch to enter was really small from where I was on the ground although it is probably big enough to fit the astronaut with the large EVA suit on.

After Zoë and Darla came back from the bathroom we went to the very beginning which is a very good place to start. The Wright brothers exhibit which had the original Wright flyer. Which looks backwards compared to our biplanes nowadays. My favorite exhibits were the going to the moon one and the one about space exploration in pop culture.

I saw the thrusters for the Saturn V rocket and both the Columbia and Gemini command modules which I think would be horrible to be stuck in such a small space for that long. It would be fine if it was just one person but sharing it with one or two other people would be… not fun.

On our way out I saw a huge star trek starship and went over to chuck it out and it turns out that it was the original model enterprise that they used in the filming of star trek: the original series I used to think that the models were small. Able to be held in your arms but no! The Enterprise was like six feet long!

Museum of American history

The museum of American history was one of the best museums that we visited on this trip. Some people call it “America's attic” because it holds so many things.

From Dorothy's slippers to Captain America's shield. It holds things that pertain to our culture and things that are so obviously American. I saw so many things that I love. From R2D2 to C-3PO and the suit that Lin-Manual Miranda wore during Hamilton. Me and Zoë were not very good at going away from grandpa and exploring on our own. But even though we didn't go off and explore by ourselves we still saw some cool stuff! I have I've been watching Star Trek Discovery lately. It's been my show for the past couple weeks and I saw a star trek EVA suit that was worn by Sonequa Martin-Green on star trek discovery. I am not in the season where she does but it was still cool to see.

War stuff

I will start with the Vietnam War memorial. All we did was walk halfway down it and back up but the wall was very powerful with the names of all the soldiers who died in that horrible conflict.

Next we went to the Korean War memorial which has all of the names of the countries whose troops went to help. From Sweden to South Africa. We also visited the WW2 memorial, the Atlantic theatre side.

Marine corps museum

The marine corps is a branch of the navy, hence marine in the name. The museum was cool and it had a very propaganda-y film at the end. This was the very first museum that we visited. We went there before we checked into the VRBO in Pentagon city. We did get inside 45 minutes before it closed so we did not visit the entire museum but we did see the first and second flags that were raised on Iwo Jima(below) and we saw the modern terrorism section where we saw a world trade center I-beam. Also in the spy museum we saw a part of the pentagon from when it got attacked.

Arlington Cemetery

We also went to Arlington Cemetery which is where soldiers go when they die in battle. There are over 400,000 graves. We went on a trolley tour but they dropped us midway to the tomb of the unknown soldier so that we could catch the changing of the guards. We did have to walk up to Robert E Lees house to catch another trolley. On that trolley we saw the most decorated section of the cemetery. There was even a cannon that was the grave marker of a civil war general! The memorials for the Challenger and the Columbia space shuttle missions.

It was a very powerful sight to see with all of white grave markers standing up. Contrasting to the green grass.

Appomattox courthouse

Appomattox courthouse was where the civil war ended; it was a small collection of homes and businesses that had a courthouse in the middle. And it happened to be the union base of operations while they were chasing down Robert E Lee.

Random stuff

We visited people on both legs of the trip. The Kramers on the first half and Clarke and Lynea on the trip home. We could have done it all in one go like what me and Miriam and grandpa did on the way back from Utah 2 years ago in 2024 when we did 2 15 hour drives in two days. It was not fun but we were able to get home really really quickly. They were all super nice and I especially enjoyed seeing Brad Kramer's office closet which was full of Lord of the Rings memorabilia and toys which was amazing.

Our VRBO was on the 13th floor of a building in pentagon city. You could even see the pentagon from my room! We had to get up so that we could be on time to the places that we wanted to go to and so grandpa threatened tickles and ice and so when he asked us to get up we shot out of bed and woke up when we were asked.

2026 Easter Egg Smackdown

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 19:56:00 +0000

Fitting all of our Easter traditions in between sessions of conference was quite the feat! We dyed eggs after the Saturday afternoon session (shortly before Benjamin and Miriam headed out to a Sunday School party). Here are Alexander and Phoebe waiting so patiently for the dye tablets to finish dissolving:

We each got four eggs to decorate, except for Phoebe, who got five eggs because there was one extra. There should have been two extra (because we made a nice, even 30 eggs...like normal people, not an unhinged number like 29—who would cook 29 eggs?) but one of them cracked while it was boiling so we ended up with 29 eggs to dye. Phoebe is our fastest egg dyer so that's why she got the fifth egg.

Remarkably, no eggs broke during the dying process. I think that's a first for us in many, many years. Typically our toddlers have dropped eggs on the table or floor or wherever and we end up with a handful fewer than we started out with. But this year 100% of the children understood the delicate nature of eggs and exercised due caution. So that was a win!

Miriam was having a bit of a troublesome time, however, and after balling up a paper towel accidentally dropped it directly into the red dye. This inspired her, however, to try a painting technique using (a fresh) paper towel.

We held our Easter Egg Smackdown between the Sunday sessions of General Conference. Grandpa drove down to watch the afternoon session with us (as well as the Easter Egg Smackdown). He thinks this tradition causes unnecessary tears—but we think it brings joy and the opportunity to work loss. This year, miraculously, not a single tear was shed.

It helps that the older kids are old enough to be good sports (because they've had years of smackdowns to practice, probably) and the youngest is so happy to be involved in a game (and hasn't yet figured out that she should be upset about losing).

Here's an early comparison of eggs:

We take the judicial procedures very seriously at our house:

Here Andrew's laughing, I think because Zoë's egg had slipped right past Phoebe and ended up smacking into the wall. Zoë wasn't sure that damage should count against her, but it really did a number to her egg while Phoebe's egg was mostly untouched. So Zoë was "out" and Phoebe stayed in.

To be fair, Phoebe dropped most of her eggs on the ground throughout the competition. She knelt on one once, I think. And every time she dropped one or whatever, she'd just shrug and say, "Guess I lose!"

(You notice we put a towel behind her to stop eggs from smacking into the doorframe).

One time she went up against Andrew...

...and when she was inspecting her egg for damage, declared, "Dad whooped me!"

She was the first person to be eliminated from the bracket, along with her eggs: Puppy, Pup, Mommy-Puppy, Rapunzel and Murpley (who was dyed purple)).

Mostly Phoebe was interested in being as chaotic as possible, literally climbing the walls, and then fussing about not being able to get down on her own (which is not true—she does know how to get down).

But if you fuss about it long enough, she's learned, someone will probably come rescue you, anyway.

Grandpa must have peeled her off that railing a good two or three dozen times!

That brings us to our next person to be eliminated: Miriam.

She was rather bummed to be eliminated so soon after Phoebe, but that's the way the ball (or egg) bounces (or...doesn't).

Alexander, last year's reigning champion, was a worthy competitor this year:

He lasted for quite a long time (I didn't—I got out soon after Miriam) but was eventually eliminated. Andrew went into the "elite eight" quite confident because three of his four inventively-named eggs made it into that round (his eggs were named ١، ٢، ٣، ٤ or, roughly translated: 1, 2, 3, 4).

He was astounded when only one of his eggs made it to the final four.

Zoë was quite happy to have smashed egg ٤ (4), meaning that her egg (Egghausted) would move on to play in the final four against Moon (Alexander's last egg):

The very last round came down to Benjamin with Wiseman (he had named his four eggs after the astronauts currently aboard Artemis II—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen) and Zoë with Egghausted. Here they are before competing:

Benjamin had a confident swagger about him (he had won in 2022, 2023, and 2024 and was ready to reclaim his title as the Easter Egg Smackdown Champion. Zoë entered the arena feeling a little more hesitant. She had never won before and honestly wasn't sure this year was her year.

But—surprise, surprise!—she did! Egghausted sustained some damage, but Wiseman was taken out, much to Benjamin's chagrin.

Here they are sharing a championship-runner's up bonding moment:

And here's Zoë sharing a close-up of Egghausted's face (she said it's modeled after me...so that's nice):

I neglected to take many pictures of our eggs this year. Perhaps we'll do better at that next year (perhaps not). Either way, I think next year will mark the 20th anniversary of this tradition! That's a long time to be doing anything, but perhaps most especially smashing eggs...

Here's our past winners (with this year's winner—Zoë! Zoë! Zoë!—at the top):

2026: Zoë (finally!) (PTC)

2025: Alexander (PTC)

2024: Benjamin (PTC)
2023: Benjamin (PTC)
2022: Benjamin (PTC)
2021: Rachel (PTC)
2020: Alexander (PTC)
2019: Aunt Katharine (Spanish Fork)
2018: Rachel (Spanish Fork)
2017: Miriam (Durham)
2016: Miriam (Durham)
2015: Me (Durham)
2014: Me (Durham)
2013: Miriam (Durham)
2012: Andrew (Orem)
2011: Rachel (Orem)
2010: Me (Cairo)
2009: Patrick Q. Mason (Cairo)
2008: Me (Orem)

Easter Basket (cases)

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 05:39:00 +0000

Before we went to bed on Saturday night, both Phoebe and Alexander had to check in about our traditions. Alexander wanted to know if we would be reading our scripture eggs on the way down the stairs (absolutely). Phoebe wanted to know if this was the day the Easter Bunny would be stopping by (she was okay with this...unlike the leprechauns).

I think they're first of all making sure that we're prepared ("Did you get candy?!"), but also just verifying what precisely these holidays are about (religiously and otherwise). My phone camera was rather glitchy today (it didn't want to take any pictures and the pictures it did get were often blurry and I'm not sure why it couldn't focus today), so excuse the photographic evidence of our day.

Here are Benjamin, Phoebe, and Alexander hiding and waiting in our bed while we were waiting for Zoë and Miriam to come upstairs...so that we could go downstairs together:

We first did our egg scripture reading using the same eggs that we made during FHE back in 2015 (according to this post):

Here's the flurry of excitement when the kids were discovering their baskets:

Phoebe was most excited, Zoë was least excited and everyone else ran the gamut between those two. I have no idea what Zoë was expecting in her basket but let's just say that it was not whatever it was we put inside her basket—a set of magnetic blocks, a graphic novel, hair clips, candy. What more could a girl want?!

Paintbrushes apparently.

Lucky for her, she found a pack sitting on the counter that Andrew had found in a drawer a couple of days ago.

"Ooooh—new paintbrushes!" she said excitedly.

"Do you want those?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"Awesome—they're yours!" (I am very generous these days). "We meant to put them in your basket, probably."

"K, thanks!" she said.

And just like that Easter was better.

So, anyway...

Phoebe was super excited about this tiny tube of toothpaste that the Easter Bunny left in her basket. Daddy had a work trip back in February—to Doha, of all places—and he brought home a tiny tube of toothpaste from the hotel and Phoebe carted that thing around like it was the most precious thing in the world. "May I use my fresh mint toothpaste?" she'd ask at bedtime (and then we'd have to ration out the tiniest of portions so that we could make it last a long time) or she'd demand "Where is my Doha toothpaste?!" if she happened to misplace it.

She finally used it all up and was rather sad to say goodbye to that tiny tube of toothpaste, but then I found another tiny tube of toothpaste while I was looking for just regular ordinary toothpaste (turns out we were out altogether) so I saved it for her Easter basket...and gave the kids a normal dentist sample tube to use until we got to the store to buy another full-sized tube for their bathroom.

That was just one exciting thing about her basket—toothpaste!

She also got a little box full of pink barrettes with flowers on them. This was very exciting for her because she wore a pink flower barrette to the park a few weeks ago (one that Rachel or Miriam got from Grandma years ago) and it fell out while she was playing, never to be seen again.

She was devastated.

But now she has an entire box of back-ups!

"Even if I lose one, I will have another!" she cheered.

That will work for her approximately 20 times before it's no longer true.

"What else did the Easter Bunny bring you?" I asked her.

She began listing items off as she pulled them out of her basket.

"The Easter Bunny brought me play-doh! And some candy! And some more flower clips! And..."

Her little hand wrapped around the carton of "Robin's Eggs" in her basket.

"...some milk!" she sang, lifting the carton.

To her surprise, the carton didn't slosh. It rattled.

"Uhhh...that's not milk...?"

"It's candy," I said.

"Candy in a carton. Huh."

I'm not really sure how she knows what a carton of milk is because she's never seen an actual carton of milk, but I think she has a toy carton of milk in her play kitchen.

Once the baskets had been fully discovered the kids set to work finding all the eggs that had been hidden around the house—up high, down low, obvious spots, less-obvious spots.

Here's Phoebe before we convinced her that it would be more efficient to carry her Easter basket around than it would be to collect eggs in her hands and carry them to wherever she had last left her basket:

Here's a picture of Benjamin bending down to put an egg into his basket...while Phoebe is taking an egg out of his basket:

All's fair in love and war...and all that.

Benjamin thought it was very silly that an egg had been hidden in the water boiler:

I don't remember what Alexander thought was funny here, but he's cute:

I do know that he was overjoyed to find these ginormous eggs that were hiding in each fireplace (with the same, like, 5 jellybeans inside that the small eggs had, much to Alexander's disappointment):

Here's Zoë trying to understand my hints about there being an egg hidden on the whiteboard:

Here's Alexander reaching for an egg (that I ended up getting down for him):

And here's Phoebe trying to decide if she can climb on top of the bookshelf to get at the golden egg on top of the picture frame:

We were very lucky that egg was still hiding because when Phoebe was counting her eggs and realized that she didn't have any golden eggs (thanks to Zoë for talking about how many golden eggs she had found) she suddenly wanted a golden egg more than anything in the world. But not just any golden egg! She wanted to find a golden egg that was already hidden.

She didn't want a pity golden egg—no thanks to that!

She wanted a legit golden egg—from the wild (or whatever).

Fortunately, I had seen that the kids hadn't found this particular golden egg. They had done a rather decent job hunting for eggs, but I still know of a few that they have overlooked. We'll probably be finding eggs for a few weeks...but I'm sure we will eventually find them all.

Anyway, this particular egg was one that I helped Phoebe retrieve. And it counted as a legit golden egg, even with the assistance (thank goodness).

I know some households are more organized than mine. For example, some households will, like, colour-coordinate eggs for the children, assigning each child a colour of eggs to find. Or, as Andrew recalled from his childhood, each child would get a room in which to look for a given number of eggs. And that's cool. I applaud those systems if they work for those parents.

We're a little more...entropic...at our house.

We just hide a bunch of eggs and let the kids have at 'em.

Do I know precisely how many eggs there are? Absolutely not.

Do I care that each child finds the same number of eggs? Not remotely.

I explained that to the kids this morning before turning them loose, and talked to them about how fairness can work in a situation like this. Like, if you're a big kid and you're finding a billion eggs with swiftness and intensity and a little kid starts crying because they can't find any eggs...you might be doing it wrong (with a capital r).

Side quest story: The other night Andrew was talking with Miriam and he told her that she was, "Wrong with a capital R!" and she just about died laughing. Because, of course...it should be a capital W.

We ran through a number of scenarios, such as:

If you're big, maybe don't take any eggs below your waistline (there are plenty of eggs hidden up high).

If you're little, maybe don't steal eggs out of anyone else's basket (that lesson didn't really stick with Phoebe, but we also reminded the kids that it didn't matter how many eggs anyone got because (a) we pool all of the candy into a common pot anyway and (b) they were welcome to re-hide and re-find the eggs as many times as they wanted to).

Aside from the golden egg meltdown, things went smoothly in our little búsqueda de huevos del caos (just...egg hunt of chaos, but I like the way huevos and chaos sound together so I went with Spanish).

Miriam (who had helped us hide the eggs) had hidden a number in the dishwasher—among the silverware, under a cup, etc. She tried valiantly to get Phoebe to put away her dishes so that Phoebe could be happily surprised by a few extra eggs...but somehow or other Phoebe got away without putting away the dishes. So eventually Miriam just fetched all the eggs out of the dishwasher, rather disappointed in her ruse.

But other than that the egg hunt went smoothly.

PS. I thought about sending Rachel an Easter...something. But life is...what it is...and I neglected to do so. So she teased me about forgetting about her. And I was like, "Wow. Sorry." And even reserved some candy for her. But, as it turns out, she went to her friend Corbin's grandma's house for General Conference and they had an Easter basket for her on Sunday morning (which was so nice of them; I was glad she had something).

I'm afraid I'm not the best at having grown up kids yet.

(I have no clue what I'm doing).

Pranks

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 04:59:00 +0000

Recently I decided to part with some lovely gooseneck chairs that Reid let me take when we moved away from Spanish Fork, but which I think Karen actually claimed when Reid's office building went 100% remote. We've had a good run with them, but it was time to let them go.

Part of the issue is that although I think they're great chairs, we've never quite had a place for them in this house. They've been "floating" chairs, roving from this room to that, with no permanent location to call home.

And that's on me, I'm sure.

If I was better at decorating things might have ended better between us.

Anyway, in December we moved one of these chairs into Andrew's office to make space for the Christmas tree. So it just awkwardly sat in a corner of Andrew's office...between his desk and his bookshelf...all through Christmas break and then all through this semester as well. We never put it back where it had been before. And it became one of my frequent haunts.

Whenever I needed to talk to Andrew about something...I'd go sit in this chair. Whenever he wanted my opinion about something at his computer...I'd go sit in this chair.

There were an astonishing number of reasons to go into Andrew's office and sit in this chair this past semester. It made me wonder why we hadn't had a chair in there the whole time we've lived here.

It kind of became my favourite seat in the house.

Still, I had to admit that it was time to pass it along, so I posted it (and its partner) on the Buy Nothing Group, listing them as "accent chairs" because I had no idea what they were called.

I moved my favourite chair out of the corner to take this picture so that I could show them together:

And then we left them there while I was finding them a new home. Some lady commented on my post that she'd love to be considered for these beautiful gooseneck chairs. So I gave them to her...because she had a name for them.

(I had no clue what they were actually called, which is why I simply referred to them as "accent" chairs).

This brings us to April Fool's Day when I walked into Andrew's office and absent-mindedly went to sit in my chair...which wasn't there!! Because I'd given it away!

Fortunately, I caught myself just in the nick of time, but there was a brief moment where I very nearly wound up flat on the floor.

I told Rachel about that this evening while we were helping her do her taxes (and by "we" I mean "mostly Andrew") and she was impressed that I pulled such a successful long-game prank on myself.

For real, though...it was a close call!

My only other April Fool's prank was this little bouquet of flowers, which Phoebe handed to me, exuberantly proclaiming, "April Fool's!" before running away cackling with glee.

They're blue toadflax, but at our house we insist on calling them purple frog email.

And here's Phoebe cowering in Andrew's arms after she heard some thunder rumbling. She had been walking with her brothers some distance away from us but ran back to us screaming and crying lickety-split:

She hates loud noises (unless the noise originates with her) and felt like the whole world was pranking her! Shortly before we went on our walk she had been happily playing in her bedroom when the smoke detector in her room went off. She seemingly glitched her way into my room (I'm literally not sure how she managed to transport her body across the hallway—she was in such a panic) and I held her while Andrew ran up the stairs to hush the smoke detector (which he can...sorta...reach on his tiptoes while I need a stool, so I usually just let him fix them).

So Phoebe was pranked by her bedroom and pranked by the sky! What an April Fool's adventure!

Just another (manic) Palm Sunday!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 05:28:00 +0000

Palm Sunday was a doozy of a day!

Miriam played a special musical number in the Johns Creek ward
Miriam played prelude, postlude, and congregational hymns in our ward
Miriam, Benjamin, Zoë, Alexander, and I sang two choir songs in our ward
Miriam played a special musical number in the Magnolia ward...as well as the prelude, postlude, and congregational hymns, and also filled in for a sick pianist (getting a 12-page score the afternoon before and practicing until she felt confident enough to accompany a soloist)
Miriam played a special musical number in Grandpa and Darla's ward

Grandpa and Darla gave their "farewell" talks before leaving on their mission and they served a lovely little lunch at their house after, which was good because we were all hungry

Miriam played an organ piano duet for the stake Palm Sunday event, as well as the prelude, postlude, and congregational hymns
Miriam and Benjamin participated in the youth choir for the Palm Sunday event
Zoë, Alexander, and Phoebe participated in the children's choir for the Palm Sunday event

It was...a lot...but it was mostly wonderful! I especially loved getting to sing congregational hymns with big congregations (our own little ward is so tiny).

Perhaps I will elaborate on some things later, but mostly I want to write down a few quotes from the day that we need to remember.

Alexander asked whether today was the day he was supposed to wear "neon" to church. I had to stare at him for a moment to process his question before responding, "Do you mean...pastels?" Because, yes, the children's choir was asked to wear pastels. Alexander wore the pants from his "The Little Prince" costume—everybody loved them. He looked dashing.

Phoebe insisted on wearing her Christmas dress because Easter and Christmas are similar holidays. Was I surprised when she walked into the church wearing a Christmas dress when I know perfectly well that her closet has many cute, frilly spring-y dresses? A little. But Andrew was left on his own to get her ready for church (the rest of us had gone to church early to either perform or practice music) and Phoebe can be...persuasive. She looked fine, if a little off-season. Daddy even did her hair! But they also brought hair stuff to church with them so I could re-do her hair because, as Phoebe told Andrew, "You know nothing about hair and Mom knows everything."
Phoebe did well during our church meeting and was overjoyed that there was no class afterwards. She's pretty good about going to her own class now, but it's still her least favourite part of church. She likes singing time and she doesn't mind sacrament meeting (I'm in both of those places with her—coincidence?) but she really doesn't like class...so she was pretty happy to learn there was no second hour.
She tolerated Grandpa and Darla's sacrament meeting. She was bummed she couldn't go up to sing with the primary kids (we told her she could—because who would stop her?—but she was too chicken). Andrew thought it would be a good idea to sit on the folding chairs in the back because she had already had to sit through one meeting...but those chairs are metal and she rather enjoyed banging her shoes on them...so it turned out to not be our brightest idea.
When we pulled up at yet another chapel for the Palm Sunday event, she moaned dramatically, "WHY DO YOU KEEP TAKING US TO CHURCH AFTER CHURCH AND NEVER LET US PLAY?!?!!" She...had a point. We did a lot of churching today. But I also think she had a good time. She hardly wanted to leave afterward—she gorged herself on cookies and had fun playing on the stage with all the kids afterwards.

Here she is looking happier than she did in the parking lot picture:

We didn't quite nail the "pastel" request, but the kids sure are bright together! My mom said these were the primary colours—red, yellow, and blue! But, uh, we know this is the shade of green/blue that really throws me off. Like, Alexander's pants are definitely bluer than his tie (which is greener than his pants) but...I'm not sure that I can honestly call those pants blue.

My brain considers them to be on the green side of things. I know it's not logical.

It doesn't need to be. Brains are unique!

The closing hymn at Grandpa and Darla's ward was He is Risen! The choir sang the first two verses and the congregation joined in. The tune starts low for "He is risen! He is risen! He hath opened..." and then jumps high for "heaven's gate!" Like, you're up on E-E-D for those notes. And then you're supposed to drop all the way down (more than an octave!) to Middle C for "We are free from..." Well, Alexander isn't terribly familiar with Easter songs (we don't sing them all that often...though we sure sang a lot of them today) and figured that since we'd jumped up high we were going to stay up high for a while. So he belted out a "WE!" up at that D above Middle C and then (somewhat sheepishly) slid down the scale to land on Middle C with everyone else. "WEEEEEeeeee...." It was pretty funny!

Here are some pictures our family grabbing and scarfing down some lunch:

Miriam and Benjamin only had a few minutes to eat before they had to head off to the stake center for rehearsal. The rest of us were able to hang out for a bit longer and it was lovely to get to visit with Darla and Marion and some of Darla's girls and grandkids.

Today was also Grandpa and Darla's second anniversary—Zoë wore the same dress she wore to their wedding and when we compared her to the wedding picture up in the front room you could tell Zoë had grown quite a few inches the past couple of years.

Benjamin would also like to note that he is wearing his wedding tie. That is the only thing from the wedding that still fits him—he's outgrown absolutely everything else.

Easter Egg Hunt

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 04:01:00 +0000

This morning I took the kids to the ward Easter egg hunt, which they didn't want to miss...so they skipped out on the second practice for the big stake Easter fireside tomorrow night. It's cool that the stake puts this on, but it does limit when we can do an Easter activity as a primary (though one might wonder whether that's necessary—I don't remember attending many church-sponsored Easter egg hunts growing up and I survived just fine). So, anyway, the little kids skipped the rehearsal, the big kids attended the rehearsal, and Daddy went grocery shopping.

Who's to say had more fun, really?

Here's Phoebe collecting some eggs from the bushes:

This is approximately where some kids found a big ol' hunting knife stashed under a bush. That was a real Easter surprise!

I had just finished walking around the building with Phoebe when I saw my friend just standing awkwardly by a bush.

"What do you think we need to do about this?" she asked.

"About what?" I asked.

"Ummm...this..." she said, pointing to the knife on the ground.

"Oh!" I said. "Well..."

We decided to take a picture of it to note its location and then remove it to an area away from children using a glove. Very crime scene of us. We didn't know what else to do so she said she'd text the bishop about it. He probably also won't know what to do, but it's always nice to pass these decisions off to someone else.

This year the primary decided to simply hide empty eggs (genius?) which the kids could use for currency to buy prizes from the Easter store. This way they could wind up with snacks and toys that they/their parents actually wanted around rather than 100% candy and/or cheap-o junk toys that come in pre-stuffed eggs. Some of the kids (Phoebe included) were a little confused and disappointed to find out that the eggs were empty (even though this was all explained beforehand), but they were still all very enthusiastic about finding eggs.

And weapons...because apparently we were doing that this year.

Here's Alexander showing off his bag (you can't tell from the picture but it's pretty full:

These bags (that both Alexander and Zoë used) came from an Easter egg hunt from several years ago (2021 to be exact). They're still going strong!

Here's Zoë with a fancy sucker/lollipop from the prize table:

And here are the kids each with a fancy sucker/lollipop:

The table had all sorts of fun things. Phoebe was most excited about the lollipops and ring pops, though she also picked out a few other candies, some bunny grahams, a bag of chips, a sticker sheet, bubbles, and sidewalk chalk. So she didn't do too poorly.

She did not understand how the storefront was supposed to function however, and just walked up to the "cash in" box, dumped the entire contents of her basket in, and then picked whatever her little heart desired.

"It was cool because it taught us how to shop!" she explained to Daddy when we (and he) got home.

Folks, there were price tags on each item. Like, ring pops cost 2 eggs. Bubbles cost 4. Meanwhile you could choose four small chocolate candies for the low, low price of a single egg.

Phoebe ignored all of that. But she really wasn't too greedy either. She showed admirable restraint and took home a prudent number of prizes.

Of course, once we got home she consumed her prizes with consummate gluttony (and will be very sad tomorrow when Alexander and Zoë are still rationing out their honest-to-goodness paid for treats while she'll be stuck with a big ol' nothing).

Daddy actually got home a little after we did. When he walked in the door Phoebe—with a ring pop on her finger and her cheeks stuffed with Skittles—bellowed, "DID YOU GET CANDY!?"

"Oh, no," Andrew sighed, allowing his shoulders to slump under the weight of the grocery bags he was carrying. "I forgot."

Somehow the man forgot to buy Easter candy. Um...how? Aren't the stores all bedecked in Easter bedeckory? Didn't Phoebe (strongly) remind him of our dire need for candy before he left for the store?!

"We need Easter candy!" she somehow managed to say, around all the candy in her mouth.

"I know, I know," he said. "I'll get some later. It'll be fine."

We are so good at holidays around here!

Anyway, by this time Grandpa had arrived to take the little ones to their second Easter activity of the day—off to the stake center for the "Walk with Jesus" activity. He got a kick out of Phoebe's clear priorities.

After the kids finished lunch—cheesy noodles (different from mac'n'cheese...because it's just leftover noodles with cheese on it) and apples—they left with Grandpa for the activity. And then hit up the park on the way home and...Grandpa sent me this picture as well...so it seems they tripped and fell into the ice cream store...

Clearly we need more treats around here!

Yet Daddy "forgot" to get any candy while he was out? Please...

Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! We're being repressed! Do you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?

We probably will send Andrew (our resident grocery shopper) to the store for Easter treats this week, you know, prior to Easter, so we can fulfill those childhood expectations. And while he's at it I hope he picks up some toothpaste because apparently the kids' bathroom is out and our backup supply is apparently extinguished (or perhaps is simply hiding with the spare toilet paper).

After all, if we're giving them candy for Easter they should probably have some toothpaste to go along with it...

Growing up—it's something you can measure!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:23:00 +0000

Without another baby to replace the last baby...how do they grow up?

I'm not sure. It feels inevitable that we're babying Phoebe a little more than our other kids were babied at her age—since they'd each been replaced with an actual baby they could no longer be the baby. We're not sure how to make a child grow up otherwise, I guess.

We do our best to teach her things and encourage her to evolve as a person, but Phoebe is happy being the baby. And I'm happy to imagine that she's still a sweet, tiny newborn.

But the truth is that she's not.

She much closer to being a full-blown kid than she is to being a baby.

Recently she's taken to playing outside with the neighbourhood kids for hours at a time. Hours!

After nearly 19 years of having a small person within arm's reach 24/7, it seems surreal to go hours without having any little people underfoot. It feels even more surreal that...that is all the future holds for us.

It's lovely. And it's lonely.

Okay, so "all" might be a little hyperbolic. I realize there is more to life than taking care of babies. But after two decades of taking care of babies it feels strange to realize that there's...no more taking care of babies in my future (not in this sense).

But I'm mostly okay with it.

Phoebe is working on being okay with it as well.

After dinner Miriam left to take Benjamin to swim practice. Technically Miriam's after-dinner job is clearing the table, but since she has to run off for either swim team or mutual every weekday that hardly ever happens. So instead we work together to clear the table.

But...we forget that Phoebe isn't a baby anymore and often excuse her to go play (or whatever) instead of involving her in the work.

It isn't purposeful...it's just habit.

Alexander wasn't having that today, however.

"Phoebe—you can clear your own plate!" he said.

Phoebe gasped in shock.

"I'm just a baby!" she said (which is probably a clear indication of not being a baby).

"No, you're not," he said firmly. "You're growing up—you're a kid now! And if you want to play outside with everybody you're gonna have to start acting like it."

Phoebe gasped again, this time with indignation.

"Fine!" she snapped, grabbing her plate.

She stormed off to the kitchen muttering to herself: "Mutter, mutter, mutter, clear your plate, mutter, mutter, mutter, growing up, mutter, mutter...stupid!"

But she put her plate in the sink and survived to tell the tale.

And, yeah, we should probably work on enforcing some more pitching-in from her since her babyhood card has clearly expired...

Spring and time

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 22:55:00 +0000

Have you ever looked at your syllabus to see what your weekly readings were only to realize that—being the brilliant being you are—you read ahead in the syllabus over spring break?

You probably did this mostly because those readings seemed useful for the big project you have due on Friday and since you're supposed to reference readings from the course in your project it made sense to read these particular articles a little early. But that doesn't really matter because you don't have any readings immanently due so you could breathe a little easier this afternoon.

Thank you, past self.

Instead you got to enjoy the spring flowers a little bit (while doing some readings for next week and thinking about your project that is due on Friday, which you really should finish (but for real though)).

We were the only ones who showed up for gardening club today, which was a bit of a disappointment, I think. But the kids are all playing outside with neighbours now, so they're doing okay. And they were all very happy that the cherry tree is finally blooming.

For dinner I dug around in the freezer until I found something that looked tempting. I'm trying to be mindful about using what's buried in the depth of our chest freezer (a whole lot of cranberries, as it turns out, and some frozen strawberries). I found a freezer bag full of Japanese curry that we made when Amanda was here visiting us...in January 2024...so it was definitely time to use that meal up.

I reheated it and it didn't even taste at all freezer burned, so that was lovely.

Thank you, past Amanda!

Present Amanda is safely in Arizona with her children after being a little less safe in Bahrain last month.

She told me about their hunch about moving to Bahrain when she was visiting us...in January 2024. And then she did move to Bahrain. And she was so sweet to do a Zoom call with my kids and show us her house and talk about where she lives earlier this school year. And now she's back in the states.

And I'm finally eating her leftover curry.

(Which she learned to love when she and Blake were stationed in Japan).

It's wild...the way time works...

Anyway, here's Phoebe enjoying some rainbow time and counting all the flowers she pillaged off shrubberies this afternoon...

Happy spring!

Gymnastics

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:30:00 +0000

Zoë's second week on the homeschool team was eventful!

I missed the whole thing because I didn't watch her and instead went off to a quiet corner in the hallway to work. The parents of the younger class tend to sit on the sidelines and watch but the parents of the team...tend to not to. So I figured I'd follow suit.

Besides, I know from my own days of gymnastics and coaching that sometimes it's distracting for the parents to be present during sessions. The kids want the parents to look at them or the parents want the kids to look at them. We had a rule that parents were not to remain in the gym during lessons, though there was an exhibition evening when our parents could attend.

Sometimes...sometimes...I miss living in a small town!

My siblings and I did gymnastics through the Alberta Schools Gymnastics Association (ASGA), a non-profit organization founded by our dear coach and friend, Darlene. She wanted to bring gymnastics to more...rural...areas. So she contracted with various schools to use their facilities, all of which were equipped with a Canadian Fold-Away Climber, a set of ladders that could be pushed flat against the wall or pulled out to make an indoor jungle gym of sorts.

This picture is from Canada.gov's instagram:

We had bars that we could place between the rungs, either as p-bars or uneven bars, so we could practice legit gymnastics. The rings weren't uncommon on these apparatuses, nor were climbing ropes.

Of course, we also had a storeroom full of other equipment we would drag out and set up every week—balance beams, vaults, a long strip of mat for tumbling.

Sometimes the school would do a trampoline unit so we would have some trampolines set up.

It seems that the popularity of the Canadian Fold-Away Climber has waned in the intervening years (if you would like further reminders of your increasingly old age and irrelevance, you can visit this lovely "Another day closer to the end" site, coded by one of Andrew's professor friends). I'm really not sure why they've faded into non-use because they are full of nostalgia for me—if that climbing wall was pulled out when you hit the gym (QDPE—Quality Daily Physical Education!) you knew it was going to be a good day.

Or at least...I...knew it was going to be a good day.

I loved climbing things when I was little. Ropes. Ladders. Swing chains. Swing sets. Trees. Lamp posts.

So any day that I got to climb this thing was a real treat!

But I guess people started to think they were dangerous or something.

Which I also get because one day during ASGA, a little boy had climbed up the rope to touch the top bar of this climbing wall and...he fell. He broke his arm so badly. It was...horrifying...truly. I've never seen anything like it.

Our head coach just...handled it...somehow.

I don't remember. I was put in charge of one of the classes (I was an assistant coach) and I just took them to another area of the gym to play some little games.

Just thinking about it gives me the shivers.

It was bad.

Anyway, today in Zoë's class a girl was trying a move on the uneven bars, lost her grip and went flying off the bars and...broke her arm.

I didn't hear any of this commotion at all (see: quiet corner in the hallway) so when I went back in to collect Zoë, I got filled in on all the details. She told me what had happened and Coach Emma explained that we'd be staying a few minutes late to make up for the break they had to take while dealing with the other...uh...break.

So, anyway, here's Zoë on the low beam (we'll work on pointing our toes):

And here are some pictures from last week that I can't remember if I ever posted:

And here's sweet Phoebe, walking along a bench at the park, practicing her balance beam skills so that she can be "just like Zoë":

Both Alexander and Phoebe want to take gymnastics now...but I told them to just hold off because they had summer swim team starting in a couple of months.

I honestly don't know how my parents did things for all of us sometimes—summer swim team and gymnastics! It costs so much to put kids into these programs...and there were so many of us...and then there's the getting kids places.

Which brings us back to the benefits of a small town. My siblings and I were often responsible for getting ourselves to our events. We'd walk to gymnastics—in the freezing cold—and would often (but not always) walk home...in the dark...in the freezing cold.

And we could because it was such a small town because (a) everything was relatively close and (b) no one cared that we were out walking by ourselves.

And sometimes I just miss that a little bit...

Leprechauns, pancakes, and toilet paper

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 03:37:00 +0000

Tuesdays are my long day on campus. I have two classes that day, for about five hours of total in-class instruction. And then I work between classes (either doing work-work or schoolwork) and squeeze in every in-person meeting possible. It's a tiring day often made more tiring since I seem unable to get a good night's rest any Monday night.

For example, this Monday, Phoebe was very nervous about St. Patrick's Day.

She couldn't find any pyjamas that had green on them and she was convinced that someone was going to wake her up with a big St. Patrick's Day pinch (even though we assured her that in our house there is a rule against pyjama pinches). So she had trouble sleeping.

When she got up in the night crying about this I tried to convince her to just put on some green clothes.

But green clothes aren't pyjamas so she wouldn't be able to sleep in those (duh).

She ended up getting up permanently around 4:00 in the morning and I...got about 3 hours of sleep total.

That's not very much sleep to be running on when you're expected to be lucid enough to participate in five hours of instruction time. I'm just saying...

Phoebe was quite excited about St. Patrick's Day, however! She put on her green clothes long before any potential pinchers were awake. And then when they went downstairs and saw what a "Leprechaun" had done to our kitchen table, she just about had a panic attack.

"Stop saying this was a leprechaun!" she shouted at her siblings. "It was Mom! I know it was Mom! It has to be Mom! I don't want any leprechauns in my house! Just stop!"

So, Santa is okay...but she draws the line at leprechauns.

She was right, though, the decorations came from someone who had thrown a party over the weekend (I'm typically not organized to throw together something like this otherwise). Phoebe enjoyed the sparkly stickers.

And here she is with Zoë and Alexander (while Benjamin was still in bed and Miriam was still at seminary):

Although we technically do have that aforementioned "no pyjama pinches" rule, Andrew wisely wore a green t-shirt to bed. The kids were overflowing with St. Patrick's Day spirit by the time they ran upstairs to pounce on Daddy and...let's just say that green t-shirt prevented a few pinches that I'm certain would have happened otherwise.

We of course pulled out the fun St. Patrick's Day hats Auntie K sent years ago, along with the bean bag toss Naanii sent several years back. I didn't get many pictures with those, however, because...I was on campus all day. But the kids had fun!

They worked on some limericks and...had something horrible for dinner. I can't remember what. All I know is that Zoë had told Phoebe early in the morning that she would make green pancakes for dinner...but then she forgot and Tuesday dinners are always a bit of a rush so they had...nachos! That's what they had. Just a real quick something-before-getting-Benjamin-to-swimming meal.

Phoebe had forgotten about green pancakes right until the moment she stuffed a chip into her mouth. She immediately started crying (see: woke up at 4 am, above).

"I wanted green pancakes!" she wailed, bits of chips flying out of her mouth.

*****

So we had green pancakes for dinner on Wednesday night. Benjamin doesn't have swimming that evening so dinner is a little more relaxed that day. In fact, we had Benjamin make the pancakes and he did an amazing job!

The first time he made pancakes they were...nasty. Like, burnt on the outside and runny on the inside and just...not great. We politely powered through them but, uh, they were abysmal.

He's made them a couple more times by himself since then, however, and I've got to say—Wednesday's pancakes were marvelous! Golden brown on the outside, fluffy on the inside! Just perfect!

A little green, perhaps...but that was intentional.

*****

Tonight the older kids had a stake Easter activity, so it was just me and Andrew and Phoebe and Alexander for dinner. We had leftovers (super fancy), including pancakes.

Phoebe was determined to prepare her own pancake. She wanted butter and syrup.

She started worked before we'd entirely sat down for dinner, so Andrew and I were still talking and bringing things to the table. Phoebe grabbed the butter, dug the knife in, and then...sling-shotted a chunk of butter into the air.

It went zooming across the room—right in front of our faces (very surprising!)—and then landed with a *splat* on the bench on the other side of the table.

I showed her how you take delicate scrapes of butter rather than digging the knife in deep and forcing it straight up (sending the butter into the stratosphere).

This is something I've been working on with Alexander as well. Like when he scoops rice (or whatever), he'll dig the spoon straight down and then fling everything upwards. I'm always like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold it so you're scooping sideways..."

They'll get it.

*****

Independence is difficult to accept. I don't particularly want to admit that my baby—my baby!—is four years old. But she is! The cousins she's closest in age to will be starting kindergarten this year (technically Phoebe misses the cutoff so she won't be in kindergarten until next year). So she's growing up.

I don't like it.

And I do.

She also has her misgivings about growing up.

On the one hand, she enjoyed going to the primary Easter choir practice today. It was two hours long. I had my misgivings about bringing her because it wasn't so long ago that she was howling in the hallway, refusing to enter her Sunbeams classroom. But she was like, "I absolutely want to join the choir with the rest of the kids."

So we took her to the rehearsal today and she was on point the whole time.

"We did an activity where if you didn't know the words you could look at the poster while you were singing but if you did know the words you could look somewhere else in the room," she bragged. "And I didn't look at the poster one time! I didn't know where to look so I just looked where Alexi was looking. But I didn't even look at the poster!"

Big words coming from a lady with rather...primitive...reading skills (like, would it have mattered if she was looking at the poster?! I guess so because that would have meant she didn't know the words but...I'm not sure how much the poster would have helped her...I mean...she can read...but...we're still working on fluency).

Anyway, she handled herself well the whole time.

Comportment: A+

I sat in a room nearby and did homework and...helped direct kids to the bathroom (the number of children who came by the classroom wondering if it was the bathroom was both astonishing and hilarious).

*****

While Phoebe enjoyed getting to join the choir, there are other parts of growing up that are...more difficult...for her.

Sleeping in her own bed is one easy answer. She wishes she could sleep in our bed all the time. And while I do love snuggling with her...she is such a wiggly, kicky sleeper that I just can't have her in my bed all the time.

Another area she struggles with is...the bathroom.

She is...reluctant...to learn how to wipe her bottom.

She has always struggled with...poop. She just finds it so, so gross. When we were potty training her she would sometimes throw up while pooping because she just found it that gross. Even now a really stinky...toot...can set her gagging. She just does not like poop. At all.

Sometimes certain foods even set her off...

All this is to say that convincing her to wipe herself after a bowel movement has been and continues to be a...challenge. But we're working through it.

The other day she called me into the bathroom to help her get toilet paper. Se can't really reach the paper from the toilet and for a number of reasons she doesn't like to get off the toilet to get the paper herself, so I help her get it still. That's a concession I'm willing to make.

"I have an idea of a game we can play," she said conversationally.

"Oh, yeah?" I said, handing her a carefully-measured portion of toilet paper (she is inclined to want to use the whole roll to avoid accidentally touching any poop, but I insist that she use four squares at a time, neatly folded instead of bunched, which will limit both accidental poop-touchage and clogging the toilet).

"Yeah! I already pooped this morning and wiped my own bum, but I thought it would be fun if we took turns!" she explained with great enthusiasm. "So now it can be your turn to wipe my bum!"

"Unfortunately, you've reached the age where it's your turn every time you poop," I said with what I thought was a great degree of sympathy.

"WHAT?!" she gasped. "For how long?!"

"For the rest of your life."

That information was just about enough to drive her to tears, but we talked through it and I assured her I could still be there for moral support (even through the most stinkiest of her toilet adventures). It was just time for her to gain the dexterity and...stomach...necessary to take care of herself. Without that I can't really send her off to a friend's house to play or anything like that. Like, she has to be able to take care of herself in the bathroom.

That seemed to sit well with her logically.

She is growing up, after all, and she's beginning to imagine what it might be like to get to spend time away from Mommy (rude...but fair...I guess) and you really can't do that if you still need your Mommy to wipe your bum. So...she's determined to figure it out for herself.

Doorknobs

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:52:00 +0000

One thing (among many) that has surprised me (and which continues to surprise me) is the number of times I've had to say, "Don't hang on the doorknob!"

My kids probably aren't alone in doing such things—swinging from the doorknob, literally climbing the walls, and other such nonsense. I mean, I remember doing such things myself (I was particularly fond of climbing the walls—where you brace yourself against either wall in the hallway and just crab walk up to the ceiling).

But, man alive—my poor doorknobs!

I am constantly begging the little people in my house to get off of them. They aren't meant to support the weight of a person! The number of times we've had to tighten these knobs...

Anyway, the other day Phoebe was hanging out in the hallway (no pun intended) while Andrew and I were talking, when she started swinging from the doorknob on the door to the stairs.

"Phoebe," I said in a warning tone. "Quit swinging on that doorknob!"

She put her feet on the ground, but she did not let go of the doorknob.

Her little face was staring right at the latch and we saw an idea spring up in her mind. No sooner did her little eyes light up than her tongue popped out of her mouth and she gave the door latch a mighty lick.

"WHAT?!" Andrew and I both exclaimed.

Because, seriously...what in the world?! Why would she do that?

"I just wanted to know what it tasted like," she shrugged.

Story of her life—she's been an oral explorer for as long as she's been alive. I thought we were getting a handle on things (after all, she was rather suspicious of Miriam trying to poison her), but I guess some things in this world are still just too tempting...

Pi Day

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:24:00 +0000

Andrew went all out for Pi Day this year. It helps that it was on a Saturday rather than a weekday and it helps that some of the chaos of this semester is starting to ebb a little bit. For dinner he made two kinds of quiche—bacon and cheese and green onion and za'atar. Both were delicious.

And for dessert?

Banana cream, yucky pumpkin, Carolina Beach, and Key lime pie. They were all delicious, but the Key lime pie was devoured first (though, to be fair, that didn't happen until this afternoon so it took us at least a little while), followed closely by banana cream. We're still working on the other two pies!

Isn't it funny that March 14 has been around for quite a long time (by my calculations) yet Pi Day is a relatively recent phenomenon? I wonder what happened in our culture to bring about such a quirky celebration. Wikipedia tells me it was first celebrated in 1988 in San Francisco—but, like why though? And when, precisely did it catch on? I remember celebrating Pi Day a little bit in the early 2000s (but not before then).

We humans are a quizzical bunch!

Scheherazade

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 23:04:00 +0000

Miriam just finished a major project for her history of fashion design course. From the list of available time periods she chose the Edwardian Era, which she has loved for ages. She dressed up as Mary Poppins for Halloween when she was four (her choice). And she cherished the Edwardian fashion sticker book Naanii sent her years ago, carefully placing each sticker in its correct spot and referring back to it frequently (though admittedly it has spent more time on the bookshelf than in her hands in more recent years).

She was thrilled to get to sign up for that era...she was less thrilled with the group she had to work with, but group projects are an evil we all must endure, it seems.

Anyway, one of the odder fashion trends from the time, in my opinion, was the hobble skirt (though to be fair and completely honest, I did wear a long pencil skirt to church today and realized that the hobble skirt never entirely went away).

Miriam asked for help pronouncing Paul Poiret's name, a French designer often credited for the invention (she had to give an oral presentation so wanted to be sure she was pronouncing things correctly). We practiced and practiced saying Poiret together until she felt comfortable with it.

Later we were on a walk and I asked how Poiret even conceived of such an idea in the first place. What an absurd thing to do—tie women's legs together so they could hardly get a good stride in (this was before I willingly put on that aforementioned pencil skirt, revealing my hypocrisy).

Women used to even have hobble skirt races!

Anyway...she said it was inspired by Orientalism and ballet.

"The skirt was inspired by the costumes in a ballet that was rather Orientalistic..." Miriam started. "The company who put on the ballet was Russian and just...rather Orientalistic."

"What ballet was it?" I asked. "Because I can't think of a reason to tie anyone's ankles together in a ballet. That just seems...counterintuitive."

"Well, I think the costumes were actually pants, but the skirt was inspired by the pants...to be somewhat billowy around the legs but then cinched at the ankles."

"What ballet was it?" I asked again.

"Oh...Skerzherdywaz," Miriam mumbled.

"What?" I asked.

"Shkerdertywitz," she tried again, mumbling and turning her head away from me as she spoke.

"Can you...tell me a bit more about the story?"

"Oh, you know it!" she insisted. "It's about a girl who has to marry a murderous king, who will only keep his wife alive for one night. But she starts telling him stories and..."

"Scheherazade?!" I nearly screamed.

"In my defense," Miriam said. "I don't think I've ever heard her name. Well, okay, I've heard her name. But I don't think I've ever seen it written down before. There are so many random letters in there!"

"It's fairly phonetic," I argued.

At least she knows now.

So, once upon a time in 1888 Rimsky-Korsakov composed a symphonic orchestral suite based on One Thousand and One Nights. This was soon adapted into a ballet performance by Michel Fokine (Mikhail Mikhaylovich Fokin) and evidently Scheherazade's billowy pants are what inspired Poiret's hobble skirt (though...the timeline seems a little suspect to me...there's another theory that the skirt was inspired by a female passenger of the Wright Brothers (Edith Ogilby Berg), who tied the bottom of her skirt together during the flight to keep it securely about her ankles rather than blowing up in her face).

*****

Last night we had a brief video call with Rachel. Miriam was agonizing over getting her assignment turned in on time (her group was honestly a bit of a nightmare) and the conversation came around to hobble skirts...more or less.

"Wait, wait, wait!" I said. "Rachel how do you say..."

I stopped because I suddenly wasn't sure how to ask the question without revealing the answer, so Andrew jumped in for me: "Who narrated One Thousand and One Nights?"

"Oh—Robin Williams!" she answered without missing a beat.

"Robin Williams?!" I (definitely) screamed (that time).

"Yes!" Rachel said.

"Robin Williams didn't narrate One Thousand and One Nights!!"

"He did so! He's the guy at the beginning of Aladdin! Corbin agrees with me!!"

(So quick, she is, to throw her friends under the bus).

"Sure, but Aladdin isn't One Thousand and One Nights!!"

"Ahhh!" Rachel said. "You're right! It's totally not!"

I mean, Aladdin is a story within One Thousand and One Nights, but Disney's Aladdin doesn't represent One Thousand and One Nights. We have work to do, it seems...

Anyway, Andrew sent Rachel this picture a little later in the evening:

Reading skillz

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 15:24:00 +0000

Last night we read a book called This Book is Not a Picture Book! by Sergio Ruzzier. The story itself was fine and the illustrations...let's just say I would like to go back and analyze those a bit more because now that I think about it I'm hoping that they get more and more illustrated as the story is told. The story is about how, from the product description on Amazon they "struggle at first to decipher their book" but "they stick with it, and before long they discover that not only can they read it, but it deserves a place on the shelf with all their favorite picture books" so it would make sense for the illustrations to become more elaborate (and cover more of the page) as the story goes along. I can't remember if that's the case and...that's not the point of this post.

The endpapers (or pastedowns) were phenomenal.

That, in my opinion, is where the story was—quite literally, but also figuratively. The opening pastedowns drew in the entire family as we tried to decipher what precisely they were saying bcuseae ehty eerw onsennes!

Nearly every word was scrambled so it took quite a bit of mental power to work out what the story was saying. But the words on the opening pastedowns mirrored the storyline of the book (and were revealed in plain English on the closing pastedowns).

It was very interesting!

And, following in the footsteps of my mother (and many other librarians and literacy scholars), I had to annoy my children by pausing between stories to say, "Just wait! I have to check the publication information!"

(I totally understand why my mom always did this...now).

"I just want to see what year this book was published—oh! 2016, so..."

"Wow!" Phoebe interjected. "This book is so old! We're in the 20s now."

And that made me feel old because (a) 2016 doesn't actually feel that long ago, although I recognize that it's a full decade, and (b) somehow my baby who was born in the 2020s is now old enough to recognize that we are in the 2020s (and concludes, therefore, that anything in the 2010 is past its prime, so to speak).

Anyway, it's a cute book.

*****

"Good morning, Mommy! Happy Pi Day!" Phoebe greeted me this morning.

She's very excited about pi day.

She's currently in the kitchen helping Andrew make Yucky Pumpkin Pie. (He was in the kitchen until late last night making key lime pie and banana cream pie—we are doing pi day on full blast this year).

Does she know what pi is?

Sort of.

Alexander is obsessed with pi right now, which probably is surprising to no one. He's been working on memorizing pi using this song:

For her part, Phoebe just...sings random numbers, being sure to throw in a "POINT!" every now and again.

So, no. She has no idea what pi is. But she's sure excited for pie!

And is so happy to be helping in the kitchen. Whenever she helps in the kitchen she's always sure to [get in the way plenty and] ask us, "Don't you just love working in the kitchen with me?"

Yes, baby. Of course.

She was the one adamant about wanting Yucky Pumpkin Pie.

Andrew tried sending one of the boys downstairs to fetch a can of pumpkin, but Phoebe quickly volunteered for the task instead. "I can do it!" she squealed.

She loves getting things from the storage room. Her retrieval skills used to be pretty hit or miss, but her accuracy has improved considerably now that she can read words rather than relying solely on pictures.

After mixing the pumpkin with the whipped cream, Andrew remembered they needed a box of vanilla pudding to go in next. He went down to the storage room with Phoebe this time, since finding such a specific item seemed a little more challenging. She knows where the canned goods are. But does she know where the tiny boxes of pudding are?

It turns out it was a good thing he went with her because, after showing her where the pudding was, she started looking through the various boxes we have on hand, muttering, "B...B...B...looking for something what starts with B..."

"Why are you looking for something that starts with B?" Andrew asked.

"B for banilla!" Phoebe said (like, duh, Dad).

She would have been down there all day!

مريم غبية

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 16:40:00 +0000

I've been teaching the kids (Benjamin, Zoë, Alexander, and...Phoebe) the Arabic alphabet this year. We liked to make fun of Miriam—and Miriam makes fun of herself—because she can consistently recognize alif...and that's about it. It's just a straight line. And it's the first letter of the alphabet, corresponding to the letter A in English.

But last night at dinner Miriam proudly announced that she knew how to introduce herself in Arabic.

"اسمي مريم," she said (ismi Miryam).

"Or..." Phoebe said impishly before breaking into maniacal laughter. "Are you غبي?" (ghabi)

"Wha...what does that mean?" Miriam asked. "Wait...I know this... Are you...are you calling me stupid?"

"Hahaha! YES!!" Phoebe shrieked with glee.

"Rude!" Miriam said (with mock offense—she tends not to take Phoebe's insults very seriously).

"Okay, okay," I said, trying to redirect the conversation and get Phoebe to settle down. "Miriam—what do you celebrate today?"

"I celebraaaaaate..." Miriam said, pausing to think.

"Doing stupid stuff?!" Phoebe said, without missing a beat (and once again dissolving into uncontrollable giggles).

I don't know what to do with this child, honestly.

"But, Nancy," you're probably asking. "Where did she learn such language?"

Like, if we consistently spoke more kindly in our home my four-year-old probably wouldn't have outbursts like this, right?

We are prone to being a little sarcastic, that is true, and my children have developed a knack for...quick comebacks. They are always ready to jump on the chance for a sick burn.

However, in this case I feel the fault lies with the creators of Alif-Baa.

We always laugh about this curriculum because the title is essentially ABC, but it was written for...people studying Arabic to be, like, diplomats and foreign service agents....so it has some surprising vocabulary.

Like ambassador, for example. Or, as anyone who has gone through Alif-Baa and Al-Kitaab know, الأمم المتحدة (the United Nations). I think الأمم المتحدة shows up in Al-Kitaab...probably right along side "My name is..." and "Hello," because obviously the third thing you should learn to say in any language is...United Nations.

Anyway...there we were, innocently learning the letter غ (ghayn) and Alif-Baa and the book throws this vocabulary at us:

"Practice writing and pronouncing the word غبي (stupid). Do not stop to dot until you have finished writing the entire word."

I'm not fluent enough (at all) to pull out other words that include غ (ghayn) in various positions (and only include letters that the children know how to write so far), so we went with ghabi.

And that's how the kids learned the word stupid in Arabic.

Hardly my fault.

To be fair, Alexander consistently confuses غبي (ghabi) with غنم (ghanam—sheep) and perhaps ghanam would have been a safer word choice to have the kids write and pronounce over and over again.

But we haven't gotten to the letter nuun (ن) yet, see? So we had to learn ghabi.

Phoebe's a reader! She reads things!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Here's Phoebe and the kitty enjoying the sunny window together:

This morning Phoebe finished with her 100 Easy Lessons book! She was very excited about it!

My opinion on this book is that it really didn't have to be 100 lessons. I feel like the last few don't really introduce anything new...they are just driving home the fact that sometimes stories are told in...installments...I guess. Like that it's okay to read a chapter or portion of a book or story and then return to it later? I don't know. The last few lessons have traditionally been difficult for my kids to get through—they're just bored of the (honestly?) boring stories in the book and want to read actual books. And that's fair. That means they're ready to move on.

But there's also the feeling of accomplishment that comes with having seen something through to the end, right? Maybe? Or maybe offering the kids a prize shortchanges that feeling. I dunno.

Miriam got to go to Pelican's when she finished the book. Benjamin and Alexander both chose a little LEGO set. Zoë wasn't about to finish the book and didn't care about a prize. Rachel wasn't about to entertain the idea of even doing the first ten lessons of the book.

Phoebe wanted...chapstick.

She loves chapstick. See, for example this conversation from July 2024:

Me: What did you find?

Phoebe: Papstich!

Me: You found chapstick?

Phoebe: Yeah! On Zoë’s shelf!

Me: If you found the chapstick on Zoë’s shelf…wouldn’t that make it Zoë’s chapstick?

Phoebe: Her is not here! So now it’s mine!

Me: Okay…so this is not how ownership works…

Phoebe: I love my papstich and I love purple. It’s nice of Zoë to leave this here when she left, right? It’s so purple. Isn’t that nice?

Me: You know she’s coming back, right??

And here she is with two tubes of chapstick from February 2024:

She just really likes chapstick!

So here she is with three tubes of Frozen chapstick that she got today for finishing her reading lessons:

Exciting times over here!

Last night I had her actually read during family scripture study, which is the first time we've had her do that for some reason. She did a fine job, but was a little annoyed about it.

"Can't I just repeat what you say like I normally do?!" she moaned.

Wow. Such enthuse. Very yay.

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 02:53:00 +0000

Zoë is in Washington, DC, at the moment, so she missed her gymnastics class on Wednesday—the first day of a new session.

This afternoon we got a text message from the mom of Zoë's friend M:

"I think you guys are in DC, in which case, hope you are enjoying your time. Today at gymnastics coach Emma said she wants to invite M. and Zoe to the homeschool team class [at a time] on [a day]. Would this be something Zoe would be interested in? M. is a yes but she still wants to do gymnastics with Zoe."

Now, we're not in DC. Only Benjamin and Zoë are (with Grandpa and Darla), see?

I told Andrew that Zoë would be, and I quote, "super interested" and "thrilled to pieces." She's been hoping to level up to the team for quite some time. So he texted her:

"Hey! Coach Emma wants to move you and M up to the...homeschool team class next week."

"Ok," she wrote back.

Andrew questioned her enthusiasm and sent me a screenshot of their conversation to me with the note: "Thrilled to pieces?"

When we video called her later ("Hey!" she said proudly, "This is how we'll talk when I'm in college!"), I teased her about not being more excited about Andrew's text message.

"All you said was ok."

"I am excited," she hedged. "I meant to add some exclamation marks..."

"I just...thought you'd be more excited about being invited to the team, that's all. You've been talking about it for..."

"The team!?" she asked, eyes wide.

"The team," I confirmed.

"I didn't realize it was the team!!" she squealed.

"I said 'team class' in my text message," Andrew said.

"Oh...well...I...didn't see that part."

So she amended her previous reaction to read with a little more enthusiasm...

Exciting times for this kid!

A poem draft from today

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 17:29:00 +0000

The day to come out

of hibernation is today,

so say the twenty-seven

turtles resting on the log, all of them sliders

or cooters, just little guys.

But in the middle of the pond

something large bobs up

and down. “An alligator,” warns

a fellow-walker. Snapping

turtle is a better guess,

I think. A belted king-

fisher dives and grabs

a snack, a grackle laughs

in the woods, behind me

a rustle—a squirrel

pops out of a garbage can

with a piece of pizza. Sun-

flower seeds on the ground lay

ignored. He gobbles the treat, licks

his fingers and disappears back

into the can, fluffy tail a waving

ensign. While he digs, robins inspect
the soil, peck for worms. The kids

find wood sorrel, lemon-tart. They
startle as a cardinal darts before
them on the path. Overhead

the sky erupts with the electric
roaring of a plane and I—lucky

mother in the world—don’t have to

wonder whether it carries a bomb
for me. Instead I marvel at redbud trees, so pink against the welkin blue.

We went to the library this morning and then stopped and played at the park until lunchtime. It was a beautiful day for it! Alexander and Phoebe play so nicely together!

Dandelions and hen-chicken

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 05:09:00 +0000

Today we went on a bit of a foraging walk for Gary's lunch. Gary is a bearded dragon, just to clarify. A bearded dragon who only sometimes likes to eat dandelions. Phoebe wishes he would eat dandelions a lot more often than he does. He can be a pretty picky eater.

We try to convince Phoebe to leave some dandelions for the bunnies—she wants to pick them all!

At least she does her part to replant...I guess...

Here she is blowing on her wish...

And here she is verifying that she's successfully identified "hen-chicken":

"Yes, that's henbit," I told her.

Phoebe was getting rather confident about grabbing plants to ask what they were and I kept reminding her to ask first and grab second because...we live in the south and you never know when poison ivy's going to pop out and get'cha!

The poor thing is in a bit of a defiant stage at the moment, unfortunately. So she wasn't listening very well.

She sure learned her lesson when she grabbed at a bramble to ask whether it would be okay for Gary to eat. She sliced one of her fingers and was pretty upset about it. But she survived.

Heissatopia

Swimming Awards Banquet

Stress basket

Saying Goodby to Grandpa and Darla

Dentists and Diners

The kids' trip to DC! (March 8-13)

Benjamin's DC report (a guest post by Benjamin)

The Metro

Lincoln

Washington

Mount Vernon

Congress, national archive, and the supreme court

Spy Museum

Air and Space Museum

Museum of American history

War stuff

Marine corps museum

Arlington Cemetery

Appomattox courthouse

Random stuff

2026 Easter Egg Smackdown

Easter Basket (cases)

Pranks

Just another (manic) Palm Sunday!

Easter Egg Hunt

Growing up—it's something you can measure!

Spring and time

Gymnastics

More toilet paper stories

Leprechauns, pancakes, and toilet paper

Doorknobs

Pi Day

Scheherazade

Reading skillz

مريم غبية

Phoebe's a reader! She reads things!

Wow. Such enthuse. Very yay.

A poem draft from today

Dandelions and hen-chicken