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.