30 December 2017

I'm snuggling with Nut Brown on the sofa one night and notice how big he's getting.  I say to him, "Nut Brown, when did you get so BIG?" and he says very solemnly, "While you were at work. Or while you were asleep."  I refuse to feel guilty and I say, "Then it's a good thing that I do go to work, or else you'd only be this tall!" He thinks this is extremely funny.  I love watching him laugh.

29 December 2017

Trampoline is up and bouncing in the backyard.  Nut Brown showed me his double back handspring last night.  He's also teaching his brother and sister to do flips.  I really need to look into gymnastics lessons again!

27 December 2017

The kids and I ran over to the beach on Christmas Day, but it was too cold to stay for long.  On the way over, Bobo was adamant that he was not going to get in the water, no way, and then it turned out that he was the only one who was willing to get in the water and jump waves.  He had a great time and the rest of us shivered.  On the way home, Bridie started saying, "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!  Merry Christmas!" over and over in the back seat.

23 December 2017

Today is the first day of Christmas vacation for me - I'm off until Dec 26.  Rosebud asked for waffles for breakfast, and then we went for walk/bike ride.  The tube on Rosebud's bike chariot is busted and until I get a new one, she has to go in her regular stroller while getting pushed by Mr. Brown while the rest of us coast along.  We did discover that Bobo is now big enough for the two-wheeler bike I've been saving for him, so independent riding practice is definitely in his future.

We bought a big trampoline for Christmas for the kids, and its in two giant boxes in the living room, and they are waiting very excitedly for Mr. Brown and I to take a crack at putting it together.  Unfortunately today they dawdled with their chores until it was too late to work on it.  We have trust issues with each other at the moment and so they're slow to do things we ask them to.  Nobody feels like they get enough love from anybody at the moment.  Mr. Brown is amazingly functional for someone who is so depressed but we miss him.

Tonight we had tamales for dinner (we are omnivorous in our Christmas traditions) and afterwards it was advent calendar time.  Our advent calendar is tiny socks, hats and mittens that have four small candies and one scripture in them, prophecies about the coming of the Savior.  Unfortunately I set up the calendar too low, and Rosebud figured out that there was candy in there and wreaked depredations on it.  I haven't had the energy to put it back together (I didn't manage to get candy into it until December 8) so family scripture study has been pretty low this month.  Anyway, tonight for advent the scripture was "Mama's Christmas Memories" and Mr. Brown and I ended up talking about how we spent Christmas as children and some of the happy things we remember.  It was really very nice, and then Rose Pink started playing Silent Night on the piano, and we sang some carols together.  Bobo buzzed off halfway through because we'd interrupted his video game turn for it, and while he was willing to pause video games for candy, he was not willing to pause for singing. 

Afterward Mr. Brown and I took Rosebud for a walk to see the lights in the neighborhood near us, which was really fun.  Rosebud at one point got out of her stroller and jogged, just like she's been watching Mr. Brown do.  Two years old is such an imitator.  She's just slightly pigeon-toed and watching her sweet chubby legs do their best to run was super adorable.  She also discovered the pockets in her shorts and put her hands in them and slouched down the street, being super cool.  She just melts our hearts.  (She doesn't feel like she gets enough love either - lately she's been waking up at night and is unable to go back to sleep by herself.  Exhausting.) 

22 December 2017

Driving past a commercial building with a 'for lease' sign in the window, and Nut Brown says, "Oh look, they've put up a holiday sign!"  We all look at him and he says, "For Lease Navidad?"

19 December 2017

Rose Pink let me cut her hair, the first time that I have cut long hair, and it got a lot shorter than I planned but is still acceptably long enough.  I didn't do a great job but I learned a lot, and she's being a really good sport about how it turned out.  I offered to take her to a shop to get it trimmed up but she says it's fine.

15 December 2017

We rearranged our evening plans to run help someone move.  They had a dolly there, and Nut Brown was giving Bobo a ride on it when some adult said, "That's just for furniture."  Nut Brown shrugged and said, "We can change his name."  That night Bobo told me that his new middle name was 'Furniture'. 

12 December 2017

I sing songs to Rosebud when I'm putting her in bed at night and she has started to learn the words to her favorites.  Her first favorite was 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' but she's added some others-

'Wok!' = Wise Man and the Foolish Man

'Popcorn' = Popcorn Popping

'Tay Me' = Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (tay me = carry me)

She fills in all the words she knows, especially to Popcorn Popping and I just love listening to her enjoy and sing.  Tonight she sang along with me using her own words and we made lovely music together.

10 December 2017

Rose Pink is undergoing a teenage ritual and now has braces!  She is still so beautiful.  The orthodontist says that she'll only need them for about 18 months thanks to the appliance that she was already wearing.  Probably we should get Nut Brown into one of them soon as well... he and Rose Pink both inherited my small mouth.  Rose Pink is being a very good sport about the dietary restrictions imposed by braces, and she is meticulous with her brushing and flossing.  I really admire her discipline.

5 December 2017

Lately when Bobo has had a particularly wonderful day, he'll say to me as I tuck him in, "Mom, I .LOVED. my day." with the emphasis on the 'loved'.  It's super cute.

3 December 2017

Rosebud is very, very, very TWO at the moment.  I don't remember any of our other kids being quite so TWO ever.  We have to talk everything through and there's so much yelling when we don't get it right.  I am learning patience yet again.  She's such a sweetheart and so kind and affectionate, but gets so frustrated when we don't understand what she wants that she starts to scream.  Her new phrase lately is 'I do it'.  We love watching her take control of her life though.  And we're practicing language as hard as we can so her vocabulary will expand that much faster and we can get through this.