8 June 2026

Nut Brown submitted his missionary application a couple weeks ago.  All our bishop friends told us that his mission call would come today, so I was on tenterhooks all day thinking it would come in any time. (It's an email from church headquarters instead of a paper letter.)  Nothing happened all day so I figured it would be next week instead.  Then at around six pm, Nut Brown said, oh look, I got the email!  Mr. Brown shouted from the back of the house, Don't open it! Wait!!

We called Rose Pink in Idaho so she could listen in, and Nut Brown opened the email.  And then he had to log in to his missionary account on the church website.  And then he had to click okay a couple more times.  Mr. Brown and I were reminiscing about opening our own mission calls years ago, and I said that I thought all the clicking was supposed to replicated the envelope experience.

He finally got to the letter, and he read the whole thing out loud, and finally got to his destination in the last paragraph - California San Jose mission!  It was a wonderful experience to listen to the counsel and the prophetic calling, and when he read off the location, there was a sweet feeling about the rightness of the call to California.  Nut Brown was really pleased and excited as well.

What a wonderful thing today was.  What a blessing to all of us that he is going to serve a mission.

 

5 June 2026

Another busy day at school for Mr. Brown and I.  We started the day watching D receive an academic award for good grades.

He was the best-dressed in the parade of 8th graders crossing the stage.

This afternoon we went to the elementary school to watch Rosebud perform in the school's variety show.  She had to audition of this, and wanted very badly to get in.  In 2nd grade, she was accepted for singing "Somewhere Out There", but she was too sick to perform on the day of the show.  Last year she and a friend auditioned a skit together and didn't get in.  So she really wanted to get in this year.  She practiced hard and passed the audition!  Here she is in the spotlight, playing her viola.  She very effectively merged two separate pieces from her viola book to make a longer piece for performance.

 

3 June 2026

Some drawings by D

 

31 May 2026 (3)

 

31 May 2026 (2)

Rosebud and I went around picking mulberries this afternoon. We tried the shaking method that Grandma taught Rosebud. We visited six trees and came home with 2.4 lbs of berries! Rosebud was very pleased.

Then we sat on the bed and folded origami together.  We made frogs.  Rosebud made a bunch of other things as well.  That was really fun too.

31 May 2026

Rosebud played her viola in church today as part of the Primary singing A Child's Prayer. She did so well! She was transposing into the alto clef on the fly and also having her first experience matching tempo with a pianist and choir and she was great! One of the ward members who is a school band director came up after to let us know that she has excellent tone on the strings for such a young player. She is something special with her music.

28 May 2026

 We celebrated National Hamburger Day by going to Burger King.  Nut Brown opted for a triple decker with an extra patty.

26 May 2026

<3 I love him so much!
 

24 May 2026

Sitting on the couch watching Nut Brown and D make a bower out of crepe paper in the dining room for my birthday while listening to Brad Paisley and teasing each other. Rosebud is in her bedroom making music on her ukulele and recorder. Love these kids.

Theme this year was a sunflower!

22 May 2026

Nut Brown decided that a great birthday gift for me would be the opportunity to go with him to make his temple covenants and receive his endowments!  So that's what we did.  My parents also came down to attend with us. It was lovely.

On the way home, my parents and I stopped off at a graveyard in Baltimore to see the graves of my father's great-uncle and great-grandmother.  It was really neat.

When we got home, my parents offered to take us out for dinner.  I chose a Greek restaurant and we celebrated my birthday with a delicious dinner!  Yum yum yum.  It was a great way to spend my birthday!
 

17 May 2026

 Rosebud wanted to learn how to start a fire, so she and I spent Sunday afternoon messing around in the fire pit out back.  

13 May 2026

This year for Mother's Day I asked my kids to make cards that thanked me for three things that I made possible for them.  First up, Rosebud: 

Her three items:

1. Thank you for showing me to use the library catalogue, it makes things easier to check out books. I love you.

2. Thank you for stopping me from throwing most of my stuff away. My life would be worse without them.  (this references the massive cleanup we did in her room recently)

3. Thank you for having people bring clothes that didn't fit so that I could have plenty of choices.  Now I where clothes that I like.

Card #2 from Rosebud:

Dear Mom I love you very much you do so much. you give your all and you love us.  I look up to you, I want to be like you someday.  You are irreplaceable to. You do so many things for us, no matter what I do I can't compensate, but what I give you know is the best I can.  Lots of love, Rosebud.

From Nut Brown:

And from D:

 A card that says 'George' over and over.  Happy Mother's Day to me!

11 May 2026

I present this image to illustrate a) Rosebud preparing to audition for the talent show and b) her very personal sense of style.

9 May 2026

Busy day for musical performances this week.  First up on Tuesday, D's final performance in the middle school choir.  He was nervous and excited as usual.  The performance went well!

Afterwards we walked over to Sonic for ice cream as our usual celebration.

On Thursday it was Rosebud's turn.  She sang with the choir:

and then performed with the orchestra:

We went to Box Hill Pizzeria for dinner and got her a chocolate eclair the size of her head to celebrate.

We are so proud of both of them!

 

5 May 2026

 D needed cardboard for a project at school, and he loaded it in the car himself.  He thought it was very funny!

4 May 2026

 Last night Nut Brown and D were silly in the living room ripping off their favorite YouTube comedian.  It was so fun to see them having so much fun together.  D is going to miss Nut Brown when he leaves on his mission.

1 May 2026

 A couple nights ago I was on the couch listening to Rosebud practice the viola.  She's been complaining about being bored during lessons because she's already learned the recital pieces.  That night she muttered to herself, "I'm not going to constrained by the teacher's assignment" and she turned the page and started a new piece.  Happy to see her choosing to stretch and grow.

Later she sat down next to me to tell me about her day.  She said, "Recess was not good today because my friends and I started a game but then it went awry" (she pronounced it "aurry")  I love how big her vocabulary is.  She's never shy about asking us for a definition of a word that she doesn't know.

This afternoon we went to her steel drum concert.  The music teacher started a steel drum group that meets before school, and she came home right away and asked if she could join it.  She plays a rhythm set of three drums called a "guitar".  The group played together very nicely. It was a pleasure to listen to them.  Plus the teacher invited us all to try out the drums afterward, which was also very fun!

30 April 2026 (2)

 

30 April 2026

This year Rosebud's art teacher would sporadically invite parents to come to art class with them.  I got to go three times and I really enjoyed hanging out with Rosebud and get creative!  Here we are with the pictures that we made showing the northern lights. We also had another class where we practiced quilling (very fun, never done that before).

Rosebud continues to engage in guided creativity at school.  Here is a poem she wrote about snow this winter, and a quilled snowflake.

She made a mask, I think sometime around Mardi Gras?

And she did some experimenting with shadows.