27 December 2018

Rose Pink gave Rosebud two bottles of pink nail polish for Christmas, and she spent about 45 minutes on a lawn chair on the patio painting her toes and toenails, and fingernails, and Mama's fingernails.  I think she used half of each bottle but she was very happily and industriously engaged.

26 December 2018

A few cute items from Christmas:

*Rosebud got a pair of fairy wings in her stocking (pink, of course) and she tried them on when I asked her to, but said, 'Oh but they don't work, see?' as she jumped up and down and waved her arms.  Then she took them off, because of course, they didn't work.

*Bobo gave me an invisible present to open from him, and when I "opened" it, he gave me a big hug.  And that was the first gift of Christmas at our house this year.

*Rosebud was playing with her new Barbie, and we said, "what is she doing?" and Rosebud said, "She's rocking around the Christmas tree!"

25 December 2018

We have had a really lovely Christmas season this year.  It's been so fun to see/help the kids find gifts for each other, and then this morning the first gifts that they chose to open were from each other, which was really touching.

Saturday was my first day of holiday, and I went to the temple and then we made salt dough ornaments in the afternoon.  Mr. Brown suggested making them as memories of this year in Orlando, so we had a palm tree and a campfire and two trampoline ornaments, in addition to a tie fighter and hearts and stars and Christmas trees and a wreath.  I made initials for everyone out of the remaining.  We all jumped on the trampoline for awhile and played various games - we all got hurt with crack the egg and then the kids said that Mr. Brown and I were the worst ever logs because we kept kissing when we rolled into each other (but he and I thought it was a delightful game).  Sunday we only had one hour of church, and we worked in the yard and had a campfire for dinner with hamburgers and peppermint peeps, which were really awful.  The campfire was a lot of fun though, and we burned a bunch of the stuff that we rounded up from the yard.  But not the bougainvillea trimmings!

Christmas Eve we painted our salt dough ornaments, which was also fun.  Mr. Brown and Nut Brown had some fun video game together time, and we had another fire where we burned MORE yard waste and hung out.  Then we came in and made up the Jerusalem dinner and cleaned up and then read the Nativity and watched the church videos.  It was nice... then the kids went to bed and Mr. Brown and I filled stockings and he decorated the cereal boxes for the breakfast cereal that we bought this year for the kids.  The cereal got costumes... a ninja, a caped superhero, a gorgeous model and mine was wearing a bubble wrap bikini!

This morning they woke up at about 6:30, and we got up to see their excitement over their stockings.  We had a lovely leisurely time opening gifts, and eating lots of junk food (and some breakfast cereal) and spending time together.  This year Mr. Brown decided that he was going to get presents for all the kids, which is very unlike him, but he did and they were so excited.  Nut Brown said, "Parents give the best presents, because they know what you want."  Nut Brown also spent a couple hours drawing with the pen/paper that he received from Gia, and Rose Pink made bracelets with the loom that Grandma and Grandpa sent.  Bobo also loved the craft project that he got from his grandparents.  (Thank you very much to all of you for your generosity.) 

After presents, Mr. Brown and I worked in the yard some more, and I had my fingernails painted by Rosebud (who had some pink nail polish from Rose Pink and put at least half the bottle on my nails, her nails, and her toes) and my makeup done by Rose Pink, who got a bunch of makeup from her parents.  We played Ticket to Ride with Rose Pink and Nut Brown while Bobo spent a ton of time with his new video game, and in general had a great time playing with all our new toys.  Now we are making up Christmas dinner... ham and potatoes and rolls and roasted brussel sprouts and trifle for dessert.  It's been a lovely day.  Happy happy Christmas!

17 December 2018

I was working on something with Bobo and said to him, "I think this is the next-to-last one..." and he said quietly, almost absently, "Penultimate."

15 December 2018

We went up to see Jenn and her family the first weekend of December.  There was supposed to be a big Christmas fair and parade that weekend but it was unfortunately rained out.  We baked up a storm and had a Christmas carol singing party that Sunday night.  Here we are with the fruits of our labors -I think we made six different kinds of cookies and used an extraordinary amount of butter.

14 December 2018

Love the winter weather.  Lots of trampoline jumping and games.  We moved it closer to the back patio and the kids jump on it more now.

13 December 2019

Face paint from the Christmas festival at work.  Rosebud got a kitty face (of course) and Rose Pink asked for a sugar skull, which surprised the artist.  Nut Brown is a tiger and Bobo got a Christmas tree.

12 December 2018

Tonight for dinner we had special ramen, where Mr. Brown makes the broth and we put in lots of extras - hard boiled eggs, slices of chicken, cabbage, green onions, corn and so on.  Yum.  Nut Brown stirred his up and said, "At Olive Garden they have soup and salad.  This is salad in soup!" 

8 December 2018

Rose Pink picked up a lovely white dress at the clothing distribution in October, which she completely and totally loves, heart and soul.  She hemmed it shorter, sewed up the slit so it's a more reasonable length, and decided to dye it black.  It turned out not quite black, but purple, which was okay after the initial shock.  Our homeschool co-op has monthly dances, and the December one is semi-formal.  She's super excited for the chance to dress up for it in her creation.

7 December 2018

Mr. Brown and the kids play a game where they name title and artist for the song that's currently playing.  Last night we were driving over to Winter Park for a Christmas light walkabout with the radio on, and suddenly Rosebud's little voice from the back seat exclaims, "Oh! Oh! Imagine Dragons!" and she was right.

4 December 2018

Yesterday I spent a chunk of the afternoon wrapping and packing gifts for out-of-town shipping, and Rosebud was all about helping me.  She wielded scissors with great abandon, unleashed vast quantities of tape, and helped put gifts in boxes - her own gifts from under the tree.  Eventually she decided she needed to involve the glue, so I got out some shiny confetti and she made pictures with glue and confetti.  It was really fun to have such a busy little helper.

20 November 2018

This weekend Mr. Brown and Rose Pink went up to Panama City to help with hurricane cleanup.  It was Rose Pink's first time camping.  Everything went well and Mr. Brown got to use a chainsaw to cut down his first tree!  He brought a piece of it home as a souvenir.

Nut Brown and Bobo got up and dressed themselves for church on Sunday with zero input from me.  They were dressed before I got out of bed.  Nut Brown was excited to wear his new suit to church.  He dressed carefully and did his hair with gel and great attention, and was ready to go at 7:30 am.  We don't usually leave until 8:30 am.  Bobo, who is always trying to keep up with his brother, was likewise dressed and had taken care with his hair, although not with gel. 

Nut Brown was sure that no one would recognize him in his new duds, and he wished for a top hat to wear also.  We found a black dress hat in the dressup box, but when told that he would not be able to wear it inside the church, he decided not to bring it.

15 November 2018

Nut Brown likes to read graphic novels, and sometimes he writes his own.

13 November 2018

Long weekend for us - Monday was Veterans' Day Observed, so I got to be at home an extra day.  Saturday I went to the temple first thing in the morning, and then we cleaned the house and went to the Science Center in the afternoon.  Rose Pink stayed home and made a lot of cookies, because Mr. Brown was teaching on Sunday and he finds cookies helpful for his lessons.  That evening, she and Mr. Brown went to an English Country Dance sponsored by our homeschooling co-op, and they had a super great time.  There were probably a hundred kids there, and they did line dances and switched partners, and had so much fun!  Luckily they do these once a month, and Rose Pink is already looking forward to the next one.

Sunday was church - Mr. Brown went and he even managed to teach his class.  I had a nice time with my little three-year-olds.  It's clear to me that they are definitely ready for Sunbeams.  I love that I get to spend Sundays with Rosebud, too.  Bobo came home with a matching game that his teachers had helped him make and we played that on the porch a couple times.  I weeded the side bed with Bobo, who will help me if I pay him ten cents per weed that has the roots on it.  We had two couples over to dinner - I think we're actually about halfway through the ward in our quest to have the whole ward over to dinner.

Monday the kids indicated that they wanted to go to the beach, so I made a lot of jam for Christmas gifts (five batches) and then in the afternoon we went to the beach and had a lovely time in the sand and sun and surf.  It was only about eighty degrees so not warm enough for me to get too wet, but we had a lot of fun digging sand castles and splashing around.  When we got home, Mr. Brown had dinner ready and so we ate (I love meals that nourish us as a family) and then the kids and I buzzed off to our homeschool co-op's geography fair.  Mr. Brown stayed home for a video game meetup with his friend BJ.  The geography fair was pretty fun - we sampled a lot of food and read a lot of posters and talked to a bunch of kids.  My favorite was the five-year-old who'd put together a presentation about how gummy bears came from Germany. 

That evening we had good night songs and scriptures with everybody and then Nut Brown and I picked his classes for co-op in the spring, and Rose Pink and I tried to work out her enrollment in Florida virtual school.  It was a challenge.  We made progress, anyway.

It was a very nice weekend - I do love being home with my family.  We had some fun and got some good work done too.

9 November 2018

Bobo decided he wanted a bookcase next to his bed, and provided me with instructions on how to construct it.

7 November 2018

Mr. Brown has revived nighttime singalongs as part of going to bed.  All the kids get their teeth brushed and get in bed, and then they each get to pick a song, and the first one in bed (that stays in bed) gets to pick one more.  Then we sing a hymn - same one for the whole month - and Mr. Brown sings Golden Slumbers as we give them kisses and they go to sleep.  Sometimes the older two get up again for awhile.

Rosebud's favorite song for awhile was "Teach Me To Walk In The Light", but the other night she wanted to sing "Teach Me to Walk In the Ice Cream".  Mr. Brown invented a song the other night, sung to the tune of "B-I-N-G-O" that is about a smelly diaper called "P-O-O-P-Y", which the kids all think is completely hilarious.  We also had a night the other week where we sang railroad songs - I've Been Working On The Railroad, The Wabash Cannonball, Casey Jones, Peanut Sat on a Railroad Track... it was really fun!  I love singing with them in the evenings.

5 November 2018

Because of Hurricane Michael cleanup, our ward moved Trunk Or Treat to November 3rd.  We had a blast dressing up again.  Mr. Brown made this fabulous chili, super super good, and he complained that it wasn't hot enough.  I'm glad that we were a bit late so that we had lots of it to take home and eat later.  Mr. Brown designed and built this game for the trunk or treat: we hung treats on clothespins and kids had to jump and grab them with their mouth in order to get a treat.  It was super cool!  (After three jumps, we'd unpin it  for them.)  I thought it was fun to build together, and Mr. Brown was quite pleased with how his woodworking for the base crosses turned out.  All in all a fun night. 

We had our practice Thanksgiving dinner on 1 November, and had some trouble finding people to come.  In the end our friends the Eddingtons came and brought empanadas (yum) and quinoa stuffing (also yum) and we made tamales and duck and turkey and beans with pumpkin in them.  The tamales were a good beginning, and the beans were really good too!  We had a couple other guests but they dind't bring food, just good company.

4 November 2018

We had some time in Michigan after the clothing distribution to go to a cider mill, which was totally great.  Love hot cider and donuts, and this place had a nature walk as well.

Here we all are!

Mr. Brown and I went to two escape rooms with our friends the Scotts and out to dinner... Rose Pink was a total sweetheart and baby-sat for us both times.  She had a sleepover with her friend Cora and a temple trip one night... also was invited to come back for camp and trek this summer with them.  Going to church on Sunday it was like we'd never left, we just slotted right back in where we belong.  Coming back to Florida after that was really hard.

But we had a great time with friends, played a bunch of D&D, were grateful for the chance to love on our old ward and catch up with our friends the Truscotts and the Scotts.

31 October 2018 (2)

 Somehow we managed a red and black theme this year, which was pretty much accidental.  We appear below in the order that we exited the house for trick or treating.

 Rosebud, who loves kitties, was a kitty.  She loved that Rose Pink drew whiskers on her face.

Nut Brown was a dragon ninja.  Our thrift store here was a treasure trove of costume opportunities.

 Bobo was also a ninja.

 Mr. Brown was the devil.  He had a fabulous cape and dyed his hair and beard and eyebrows black.  The horns were super awesome. 

 

 Rose Pink was a day-of-the-dead person.  She found this skirt on sale last November (post-halloween) and has been waiting for a year to wear it.

 She did her own makeup!!

She also found one for me, so we were twinkies, which was really fun!

She made her headdress, and I put two separate headdresses that I found in Michigan together to make mine.  I have a veil with a skull on it sewn on to the flowery headband.  We were both pleased with our costumes.

Trick or treating was fun, although our neighborhood was less fruitful than we expected.  But there were still piles of candy when we got home.  Eleven pounds this year.

31 October 2018

This photo reflect Rosebud's obsession with the color pink.  She gathered up a bunch of pink things and put them in her pink crocs.  I think I noted in here already the day that I put on a pink flowered apron and she came up to me and said, "Oh Mom!  It's pink!  I have to hug you!" and she gave my legs a hug.  A couple weeks ago I put on some hot pink slouchy pants that I haven't worn in awhile and she was immediately caught up in the color, coming up to me and saying, "What's this?  What's this?"  She LOVES pink. Anything pink.

29 October 2018

At the end of September, Mr. Brown rewarded my extra time at work by building me a raised bed next to the guest house and putting up poles for pole beans.  I have started the beans, and they look beautiful twining up the poles.  I planted pepper plants in between.  Hopeful that they will do well this fall!

27 October 2018

Halloween preparations... Mr. Brown is up in the panhandle cleaning up after Hurricane Michael and reminded us to be sure and do jack o'lanterns this weekend!

Rose Pink made sure to change into appropriate attire for the activity.  We have some friends staying with us, and they're former JWs who had never carved pumpkins before.  So that was fun too.

 

Rosebud got happy with the Sharpies on hers.

 End results:

 Rosebud's kitty pumpkin (it's all cats with her... guess what she's going to be for Halloween?)

Then the sun came out and the boys needed sunglasses.  Sun in Florida is no joke.  Nut Brown and Bobo were both making Avatar the Last Airbender pumpkins.  Nut Brown carved four of the characters into his.  Bobo got hold of the tiny pumpkin saw and went to town on his.  He did most of it by himself and I think he ended up with three faces on his, plus he cut out the bottom of it.

Lit photos from that evening of Bobo's and Rosebud's pumpkins:

25 October 2018

At the end of September, Mr. Brown and I got dressed up and went to a Gold and Green Ball hosted at the stake center.  I was so excited for it.  I wouldn't let him see my outfit ahead of time but I told him it was all black, so he went and got new clothes too, all black to match me.  (We're so cute!)  We danced and danced for three straight hours.  There was a live band, and we had so much fun!  Rose Pink watched the younger kids for us, and we had such a good time together.

24 October 2018

We found $78 plane tickets and so we flew back to Detroit to work on our favorite service project ever!

Winter clothing distribution!  20,000 pounds of clothes and five solid days of hard work!

Also friends!

It was good to be back with friends and to work hard at a worthy project.  Things felt different about it this year, though - less unity, less common spirit... it was just hard work with less spiritual reward.  But it was so good to be back in Michigan with our Michigan ward!!

24 October 2018

We went to the beach at the end of September.  This picture captures the beach experience as a responsible parent - always checking for my four fluorescent rashguard babies - pink, yellow, orange and pink, although the small pink one is usually right next to me because she's very cautious about the waves.  Living so close to the beach is one of my favorite parts about living in Florida!