4 May 2016

Mr. Brown and I got into a D&D plot via Google chat the other day while I was at work.  It involved mud monsters from the swamp that engulfed the unwary and carried them off, a poorly aimed fireball that set the tavern bar on fire, and fire called down from heaven that hardened the mud monsters into ceramic.  The kids were so inspired by the interplay that they produced the following artwork:

2 May 2016

Happy birthday, Bobo!  He's been so excited to turn four for weeks and weeks!  He came downstairs to our bed on the very day and said, It's my birthday!  So we sang Happy Birthday to him and he sang along and added, "Happy birthday to MYSELF!" every time.  Mr. Brown took him shopping for presents, and he was allowed to play Candy Crush before breakfast, and we all tried to make it a special day for him.  He chose what was for dinner, and then we had poke cake for his birthday with four candles and the train candle holders.  (Poke cake was chocolate with raspberry jello- yum)  After blowing out candles, Mr. Brown went out to the living room because he doesn't eat sweets.  We dished up the cake, and Bobo ran out to make sure that Mr. Brown knew he could have some.  Mr. Brown kindly declined, and Bobo came back to the kitchen saying that he wanted to share his cake "wif all my famiwy because I yuv dem all so much."


Rose Pink/Nut Brown went in together on a Camelbak water bottle for him so that he'll stop borrowing Rose Pink's.  Gia sent him four dollars, which he counted over and over and said, "I'll buy diapers for Kitty!  I'll buy a treat at the corner store!  I'll keep the other two dollars."  All four ended up going for treats at the corner store which were very much enjoyed.  His other grandparents sent some toys, including a Batman Lego set, which was a double win - Batman AND Legos, it can't get much better than that.  He very sweetly thanked Mr. Brown spontaneously for the toys that he bought for him.  He's such a dear little boy.

24 April 2016

 We were cleaning out the basement and brought up some charcoal pencils we found down there.  The kids drew pictures of Mr. Brown.  Nut Brown's is above and Rose Pink's below.

22 April 2016

I went upstairs to lay down with Bobo for bed the other night and when I took off my glasses and put them on the shelf, he jumped up and said, let's switch sides, Mommy.  When I asked him why, he said, "So I can hand you your glasses in the morning."  He's so thoughtful.

21 April 2016

Spiders everywhere!  Rose Pink really got into April Fool's Day this year and set up a variety of pranks for us.  She put eyes on some of the food containers in the fridge, which was really actually very cute.  She also put the stuffed rat into the cupboard on top of the plates, and I totally jumped when I opened it that morning.  She also drew spiders in black ink on various paper products (paper towels, toilet paper) so that they would suddenly appear.


The spiders were a hit, and she and Bobo ended up making more spiders and hiding them around the house, then going on a spider hunt together.  A couple days later I made up a bunch as well and hid them for the kids to find then next morning. 

19 April 2016

Kitty has started talking to us!  When she's in the mood, she tries to catch your eye and then will expound at great length regarding whatever she's currently concerned about.  It is so fun to talk back and forth with her.  She is such a mellow kid - when she fusses, it's because she needs something, and once you take care of it, she's good to just hang out - sit on your lap, watch the activity around her.  She is such a joy!

Here are the kids, watching the snow out the window on General Conference weekend at the beginning of April.  Oh yes.  We know it's spring because we think forty degrees is cold now, instead of thinking it's warm. 

11 April 2016

Kitty has her first cold, and can't breathe while laying down.  She slept just fine last night while being held but struggled for breath and woke up every time we laid her down in her crib.  It was a long night.  She ended up in her car seat for awhile.


This morning Bobo saw me walking around without pants on while I was making him a sandwich for breakfast, and he said, "I'm going downstairs, Mama.  I'll come when you call me."  Then his little voice comes up the basement stairs.  "Mama, which yaundry basket is yours?"  He was going to surprise me with my pants!  What a cutie.  He hates to be undressed, so I imagine that he was trying to assuage what he must have viewed as my distress at being pants-less.


This has really been such a cold spring.  It was freezing all week last week and it snowed four times.  You know it's spring though, because we're complaining about how cold forty degrees is.  If it were January, we'd be celebrating forty degrees.


Bobo has started learning to read.  He's clearly wanted to for awhile, and while I was on maternity leave we studied letter shapes and sounds.  We're so tired from new-baby-life at the moment that it stalled out when I went back to work, but I decided that if he's up before I leave in the morning, we'll have five minutes of reading.  That's really all a three year old should have anyway.  So we're reading Dick and Jane together.  He's so pleased when he learns new words and is so proud that he can read the stories to me.  I love watching him learn!

29 March 2016

I'm totally going to jinx it by writing this, but Kitty has slept from 10 pm - 6 am the past two nights.  Mr. Brown figured out that bath + bottle + tight swaddle will pretty consistently help her sleep, and we have been so grateful.

We are in the middle of what Nut Brown has called a 'diaper festival'.  I had three people ask if they could throw baby showers for me, and I requested the gifts be diapers, since other people randomly offered us basically everything we needed for a baby.  Diapers turned out to be a great idea - she's ten weeks old this week and we haven't bought diapers yet.  We ran through all the newborn size and size one, and ran out of size one right when she reached twelve pounds so we switched to size two.  Perfect!  I have four boxes of size two diapers in the closet, and then I have $185 dollars in gift cards to buy more diapers.  I bet I can make it at least four months without buying any! 

27 March 2016

While my parents were here in January, Rose Pink and Grandpa built an air-powered boat from a balloon and aluminum foil that would float across the bathtub.  Rose Pink also made a female figure to ride in the boat.  "Oh, a princess," I said.  "No, Mom," she corrected me, "that's the captain."

25 March 2016

Twinkies

22 March 2016

In Feburary we were invited to a costume birthday party.  The kids came up with their own costumes!

Nut Brown

Red Riding Hood and her wolf

Mad Hatter on holiday

I was dressed as a female samurai with sword, but didn't get a photo.

21 March 2016

I was pinched three times on the morning of St. Patrick's Day because I wasn't wearing green (laundry is not a super high priority at the moment).  I came home from work and found that Rose Pink and Bobo had drawn shamrocks on their faces to celebrate the holiday.  We went to the St. Patrick's Day parade downtown on the Saturday preceding, and had a good time in the sunshine collecting candy and clapping for all the bagpipers. 


On St. Patrick's Day the kids also built a message relay system in their bedroom using yarn and paper towel rolls and a tiny bucket and an address label roll holder. It started that morning when Mr. Brown saw Rose Pink throwing away the address label roll holder and said, "Is there a way to re-use that?"  She pondered and the message relay system was born.  They spent hours drawing/writing/sending messages to each other.  Bobo has some of them in his treasure box.

20 March 2016

Nut Brown is eight now and so he's in Cub Scouts. Here is his first skit:

This is his entire pack:

(that's right, two boys)






and here are all of us. Bridie was two weeks old in this photo.

Den meetings are at our house on Thursday afternoons, and since Nut Brown is the only Scout (the other pack member is eleven so he's in a different den) Rose Pink and Bobo get to participate as well. At the last den meeting, the den leader had them make paper mache dinosaurs.

 

Nut Brown has enjoyed all the stuff he gets to do, and Bobo is eagerly looking forward to being a scout as well, and talks about it all the time. Rose Pink wants to know why she's been left out, but fortunately she does get to participate in most of the activities. For Pinewood Derby, we're going to have a collaborative derby so that the boys can build cars, race them, tweak them, race them again, advise each other, tweak them some more, race them again... and so we're inviting siblings to participate too. Our home teacher is a car designer for GM, and he agreed to help design the cars too. Should be a lot of fun!

19 March 2016

Bobo is obsessed with 'three' because he's three years old.  He always wants 'three' of things, and to read verse three when we're reading scriptures, and so on.  A couple weeks ago he returned a shirt to me because it was a four and he's a three.  Well, his birthday is approaching, and he's outgrowing all his 3T clothes.  We had a fun talk about how his body is four even though he hasn't turned four yet, and so it was okay to wear 'four clothes'.  At first it was just pants, but now he's wearing size four shirts as well.  He feels so grown up having moved up a size.  It's really cute.

18 March 2016

Rose Pink put together some early piano books and taught Bobo and Max how to play some very simple (one-note) songs.  Then they had a recital for Mr. Brown and I.  They were both very excited by the opportunity to show off.  There hasn't been any follow-up, but it was fun to watch them be creative.  I really think that Bobo is going to enjoy studying music when he grows up.

17 March 2016

Bobo decided to eat a chunk out of the middle of the cake Nut Brown baked for a Scout activity, and as a consequence had to earn some money to buy Nut Brown a replacement cake mix.  At three years old, money can be a little tricky, so we had him do some chores to earn tokens that he could redeem for a cake mix.  We made him a chart and he taped the coins on as he earned them.  It took him less than 24 hours- he was very interested in doing the work and getting out of debt.

15 March 2016

The other night, Bobo was upset about something going to bed - disappointed and in tears about something, I don't remember what.  He didn't want to pray, so I said, "You know, you can ask God for help with anything you want.  He loves you and he will help you."  Bobo sighed and gulped, and prayed, "Dear Heavenly Father, please help me understand Jesus."  I thought he'd ask for help with what he was upset about, so I asked him why he'd asked to understand Jesus.  He said, "Because he's in my picture scriptures, Mama!"  We're reading the Book of Mormon picture scriptures right now, and his favorite stories have been the ones with the Savior in them.  He also loves the New Testament picture scriptures, for the same reason.

14 March 2016

Gia came to visit at the end of February!  She held the baby, and then she watched the older kids for us while we were in the hospital with the baby.  Fortunately it turned out to be nothing at all, just a routine virus so she ran a fever for a few days and then got better and they sent her home.  Meanwhile, Gia got lots of quality time with the older kids.  We were so blessed that this happened during her visit - it made it so much easier to make sure one of us could always be at the hospital with Kitty.

13 March 2016

The Star Wars passion continues unabated. Here we are at the park aiming blasters:

For grammar, Nut Brown had to write a letter and address an envelope. He decided to write a letter to R2D2. Rose Pink wrote him back, and for a little while I think he actually believed that he was getting letters from R2D2. It was really cute.

Rose Pink has been getting Star Wars origami books from the library, and made this lineup. For a friend who is also a fan, she made a complete set as a birthday present.

12 March 2016

This week she graduated from 'newborn' size clothes to '0-3 months'.  (She's two months old this week.)  Also she learned how to smile, and we all try really hard to coax her into doing it again for us.

11 March 2016

Mr. Brown has been growing out his beard since June 2015.  It got really long and very furry.  We all loved it - I braided it.  Then it got longer.  And longer.  And longer.  Yesterday while I was at work he sent me this photo:

He looks great!  Although it's a big change for the rest of us - Kitty didn't recognize him and Bobo was completely flustered by it.

10 March 2016

After playing in the mud for most of the winter (see above), we finally got some good snow to play in!  March is a great time for snow, why not?

Of course it's all gone now- totally melted.  It's been a long winter in spite of the warm weather, and I'm really looking forward to spring.

9 March 2016

Rose Pink, during a snowfall a couple weeks ago:  Mama, how come the snowflakes are black against the white sky but white against the parking lot?






Rose Pink, attempting to determine the color of a dark jacket: I can't tell if it's black or navy brown.  I think it's navy brown.






I just found out that she's been reading Harry Potter out loud to Nut Brown at night after they go to bed.

7 March 2016

There's been a lot of video games at our house since Kitty arrived. The boys do not object.

We're not sleeping a whole lot or getting a whole lot done beyond holding the baby.

but boy do we love her!

Her hair is curly when wet.



When she's hungry and crying for her bottle, she'll shape her mouth in an 'o' to make sure we know that she's expecting it to be inserted at any moment.

24 February 2016

I just found these photos from a year ago... Rose Pink and Bobo are pretty tight, and a year ago, they were playing this game where Bobo would talk to the 'kitties' on Rose Pink's footie pajamas.  The kitties would come out to meow and play with his feet.  He would ask and ask her whenever she wore the pajamas if the kitties could come out to play, and laugh so delightedly when they did.

22 February 2016

Recently found this unpublished story from a year ago from Nut Brown about two mammoths who battle first with bullets and then with tusks.

17 February 2016

Bobo will ask to see Kitty, and when I hold him down at his level, he smiles and says to her, "Do you know how cute you are?"  Tonight I watched him and Mr. Brown giving Kitty a bath, with Mr. Brown instructing him how to bathe a baby so that he could learn and be ready to bathe his own babies when he is a papa.  It was so sweet.  He decided that his first baby would be named 'Baby Dog'.

Today the boys and I were walking around waiting on Rose Pink at her piano lesson.  They threw snowballs at my back for awhile, and then Bobo began brushing off my back where he could reach. I thought, "how nice, he's brushing off the snow from the snowballs" so I bent down so he could reach more of it.  Ah, the naivete of motherhood.  He was actually brushing snow on to my back to try and turn it all white.  I found out when it started to melt and my back got cold.

Tonight was pack meeting, and Mr. Brown and I were so impressed with Nut Brown, who spoke on request about the activities he'd completed for his belt loops, and then presented his idea for a service project to the adults on the pack committee, all by himself.  It is amazing to watch him grow.

16 February 2016

This weekend we ran up to visit our friends in Mt. Pleasant.  Kitty was very well behaved and we had a good time hanging out, although there was no gaming.  We watched the Republican presidential debate instead.  The kids even put on their snow gear and went out to jump on the trampoline when it was twenty degrees outside. 

At night, when I'm tucking Bobo in bed, he kisses his hand and then presses it to my forehead.  Lately he's really taken to coloring pages and spends hours carefully choosing colored pencils and coloring. 

12 February 2016

At a birthday party this weekend, Kitty was fussing because she was hungry and I'd forgotten her bottle (oops).  Mr. Brown hurried home to get it, but meanwhile I was bouncing her and trying to jolly her along til he got back.  Nut Brown asked to hold her, and she settled right down for him.  He held her and bounced her a bit.  One of the other moms looked over and said, "Is that a baby you're holding?  A real baby?"  He answered, "Yes.  It's my baby sister."  She said, "How old are you?"  Nut Brown does a good job with Kitty.  He talks and sings to her, and rocks her in the glider when he is holding her.

10 February 2016

Rose Pink likes to play with words.  At the park near my uncle's house in Ann Arbor, she said she wanted to get off the tire swing as soon as the 'goingness' went out of it.  When my uncle laughed at her neologism, she said with asperity, "I mean the energy."  The other day in her prayers she told the Lord that she didn't care for 'smallinating' fractions.

7 February 2016

The last two weeks people have been bringing us dinner, which has been really nice.  One evening the casserole we were baking (most of the food brought to us has involved chicken, btw) was taking too long, and Bobo decided to make dinner.  He got out the stuff for tortilla pizzas, chopped apples for apple slices, and found a bowl of salad in the fridge to be the 'venchtable'.  So that's what we had for dinner instead of casserole.