26 February 2024

Rosebud was baptized on Saturday! She was one of three little girls from her Sunday School class that were baptized that day, and there was a lot of little girl energy bouncing around the church.  Rosebud kept jumping up and down before the service started because she was so excited.

Nut Brown baptized her.  When she was born, we did math in our heads and said, "When she's old enough to get baptized, Nut Brown will be old enough to baptize her!" and now, eight years later, we arrived at that moment.  

Grandma and Grandpa came out for the baptism, and Grandpa bestowed the gift of the Holy Ghost on her and gave her a lovely blessing.  Spencer's sister and her family also came up from Silver Spring.  A lot of people from the ward came and gave her gifts.  We had a brief reception in the gym afterwards.  Nut Brown served desserts with help from one of the Knoxes.  The whole event went really well, and she felt very special. Spencer and I were so grateful for all the people who came out to show their affection for our family.

Afterward, my parents and Spencer's sister and family came back over to our house for dinner, which was fun.  Her kids are basically the same age as Bobo and Rosebud, so there was some fun play that happened.  It was really nice to visit with the adults as well.  My parents came back the next afternoon (Sunday) for a few hours and we had a good time together.  

I'm so happy for Rosebud!

18 February 2024

 Kids are funny.  Funny food lates: 

-Bobo and Rosebud have been taking unfilled sandwiches for school lunch - that is, two slices of bread.  

-Nut Brown's favorite breakfast these days is Kashi cereal with frozen berries and whipped cream - a half a cup of heavy cream, whipped, every morning.  (So many calories for my teenage boy!) He also eats a lot of chicken nuggets cooked in the air fryer for lunch every day.  

-Rosebud is still working her way through her Halloween candy.  She filled her class valentines with some of it.

16 February 2024

 Bobo likes his hair longer on top than Nut Brown does, so I've started taking him to the hair cutter to get it cut instead of doing it ourselves.  When he got really shaggy a few weeks ago, I took him in, but the stylist he got that day did a terrible job.  She fussed with it and fussed with it but cut minimally, so he ended up with a seventies hair cut where even the short hair was long.  Finally I told her that it was fine, and took Bobo home and decided he was just going to have to live with a Mom cut this time.  I trimmed up the back and sides without any problems, but when I tried to address trimming the top so that it was shorter but still long enough for him, I didn't do as well.  His bangs ended up lopsided and ragged.  He looked at himself in the mirror and said, "Mom, you just lost a client."

15 February 2024

 In November, Mr. Brown and Rose Pink and Nut Brown cleared out a big messy section of the backyard which Bobo and Rosebud and I were visiting my parents.  The debris turned into a woodpile (a small one) and last Saturday night we had a firepit night for the first time since moving in!  Our trees both drop twigs at an extraordinary rate, so we always have lots and lots of tinder.  We burned the woodpile and cooked hot dogs and marshmallows over it and hung out together staring at the fire and listening to Prairie Home Companion off and on when we were talking.  It was a perfect night for it, and we had a really great, quiet time together.

13 February 2024

Snow day again today! Unfortunately it now means virtual school assignments.  Happily both Bobo and Rosebud finished pretty quickly.  I love it when it snows.  It's so beautiful.  And the snowfall is very heavy with big wet flakes today, lovely!

Today is Paczki Day, and we were excited to find paczki for sale at a local supermarket! This is very timely since Mr. Brown is too sick today to make paczki this year.
 

11 February 2024

 Last night, while getting ready for dinner, a spontaneous performance of "Moses Supposes His Toeses Are Roses" (from Singing In The Rain) broke out, complete with the boys doing the corresponding tap dance in the kitchen.  We sat down to dinner and played Telephone during dinner because the kids were still caught up in tongue twisters and enjoying it. It was all very playful and fun!

This morning a member of the bishopric challenged the ward to share their testimonies about something.  I missed the invitation entirely, but Nut Brown took the challenge and got up to share.  As he crossed the dais and turned to face the congregation, Bobo and Rosebud flashed him enthusiastic, sustained thumbs up gestures!  Nut Brown shared some beautiful thoughts about how much love he feels in the temple when he attends.

9 February 2024

 Tonight we stood out on the lawn and looked at the stars with Bobo's new binoculars that he got for Christmas.  I found an app that told us what the stars are when we pointed my phone at it.  We found Jupiter, and Betelgeuse, and Sirius.  I was grateful for the technology that made the night sky so much more accessible to us.

2 February 2024

The end of the monster snow week.  Bobo and Nut Brown made a snowman, and then it rained.

I drove for a temple trip for the youth, and Bobo went for the first time.  Our car was the singing car, as they sang their way through Hamilton on the way down and back.  They're very careful to clean up the language as they sing, replacing "damn" with "darn" and "God" with "gosh" and so on.  At one point Bobo sang, "In Gosh we trust" and Nut Brown interrupted him to say that it was okay to say God there, since we trust in Him and not in Gosh.

Bobo has also started passing the sacrament.  I snuck a photo of him on his first Sunday.  He is strongly encouraged to wear a white shirt and so I finally have an excuse to insist.  (He was not very resistant.)  Overall, it has been a pretty straightforward transition for him so far into the youth program.  He was nervous the first couple weeks as he sorted out new teachers and new meetings, but now he looks forward to weekly activities and is okay with his deaconly duties.

Nut Brown has started blessing the sacrament as well.  I love to see him doing that.  Both my boys are such awesome people!