20 October 2026

D's school picture this year.  

 

11 October 2026

 Rainy day all day today.  I had tea and a toasted bagel for lunch.  Nut Brown and Mr. Brown are making fried chicken strips for dinner, working together and chatting in the kitchen.  D and Rosebud have gone out to play in the rain.  Sunday afternoons they often hang out together, either outside or in his room playing legos.  Quiet day.

Rose Pink is doing a challenge for "art-tober" of making a piece of art every day.  She picked stamps and has made a stamp every day so far this month.

7 October 2026

 Rosebud has officially switched to the trombone for her lessons at school, and started viola lessons with an outside teacher recommended by a friend.  After her first private lesson, the teacher told Mr. Brown, "I can tell that she's a hard worker."  Now when she gets home she works through three music practices after school - trombone, viola and piano.

4 October 2026

Conference weekend!!  Settling in on the couch in front of the computer...

(and Rose Pink in Idaho with a friend)

...and of course conference ramen!!

(and Rose Pink made spam musubi!)

 

30 September 2026

 

27 September 2026

 It was stake conference today so we had steak for dinner, at Nut Brown's suggestion.  Tee hee.

26 September 2026

 Rosebud and I went down to APG to a STEM Day event put on by one of outreach office.  It was super fun, because there were actual scientists there to talk about the things that they work on.  We looked at a model of a satellite and watched a rubber ball dipped in liquid nitrogen get smashed.  There were drone flying simulators available, and a guy talking about universal batteries.  Another pair of researchers let us try out their airborne radar sensors.  One of the more interesting was a lady who is focused on insects in food and had bakelite boxes with cereal grains and the corresponding weevils.  It was all really cool.

Also there was a helicopter.  Rosebud got to sit in it, and then we watched it take off- there was a storm coming and the pilots decided to leave early.  It was a morning well-spent!

22 September 2026

Nut Brown being a very cool young man leaning on the counter in the kitchen talking with Mr. Brown while Mr. Brown is making dinner.

 

20 September 2026

D has started insisting on helping Rosebud clean her room after church on Sundays. He harasses her about it until he is able to get her to bring a little more order to her room, which right now is cluttered with an amount of possessions that exceeds the reasonable capacity of the room. 

Mr. Brown and Nut Brown have started to make Sunday dinner a thing for us. They choose a menu on Saturday afternoon and then work together on Sunday to make it. I wash dishes. They're at it right now, chatting about different things as they make potato broccoli soup, frittatas and bread.  D is in the kitchen right now too, making brownie cookies for hygge night at our friends' house later this evening. 

Rosebud is reading in her room and I'm working on my crosstitch on the couch. Our playlist of religious music is playing. It's a really peaceful afternoon. 

This week Rose Pink texted that it was raining where she is in Idaho.

Mr. Brown have been laughing about her plants taking a field trip out the window all week.

14 September 2026

 D helping Rosebud with her math homework.

11 September 2026

In the mornings, Rosebud likes to get out of bed and lay on the couch for a little while snuggled up in one of her fuzzy blankets before getting ready for the day.  Yesterday I was sitting on the couch when she came up, and she snuggled up next to me.  I said to Mr. Brown, "Did you hear that the Bayeux Tapestry is on display in Britain for the first time in 900 years?"  Rosebud said, "What's the Bayeux Tapestry?" I looked up some images on my phone and we brought up the wikipedia article and talked about the Norman Invasion in 1066 and King Harald being shot in the eye.  It was very cozy to be learning together all cuddled up, and I decided to be late to work so I wouldn't miss any of it.

Last night I took D to Chili's so he could hang out with his volleyball team and have dinner.  He successfully negotiated the entire process and had a good time.  Watching him figure it out brought back difficult memories from adolescence and I'm glad that he persisted and solved problems and had a good time.

10 September 2026

 Poor Rosebud!  Home sick from school already and it's only the second week! She threw up on the bus yesterday on the way to school and decided to stay home today.

She sends me emails from her school email account:

We recently switched bedrooms with her.  When Rose Pink painted the house three years ago before we moved in, she painted our names on our bedroom doors.

Mr. Brown and I assumed that she would want to have her own name on her new door instead of ours, but she told me that she would rather keep the door as it is, because it's like having a little piece of Rose Pink still with her.

9 September 2026

 Yesterday D came across a new song that he loves so much that he wants to listen to it on repeat and learn the words.  It's "House of Memories" by Panic at the Disco. We turned it on going to Mutual tonight and he sang along with the lyrics on my phone, and then we turned on going home.  And then he listened to it and sang along while he was doing the dishes.  He said he wished he could get piano music for it for Rosebud so she could play it and he would sing along.  He said if he could find the piano music that he might learn to play it himself, just that song.

7 September 2026

 First school holiday!  Happy Labor Day!  We cooked hamburgers over the fire and burned some old school papers.  D crumpled all of his up and then he and Nut Brown put them in all at once.  It made a ten-foot tall fire for about three minutes.  Very exciting.