25 November 2023

More art from Nut Brown.  This is from when he was much younger, before any art classes.  It features video game characters from both Castle Crashers and Terraria.

 

24 November 2023

Some artwork from Nut Brown, created during 8th-9th grades:

 

22 November 2023

Guess who was one of the second graders chosen for special recognition at the monthly assembly?  Our beautiful Rosebud!

 

21 November 2023

 We picked apples this year (oh joy! oh bliss!), something that we have missed ever since we left Michigan.  It was wonderful, and the fruit is delicious.  It was fun to discover that Maryland people have opinions about apples and apple varieties in the same way that Iowa people have opinions about corn and corn on the cob varieties.  Rosebud wrote a poem when we got home.

20 November 2023

We went to the National Zoo on Veterans' Day.  We missed the pandas because they changed the departure date on us :( but I hear that President Biden may have successfully negotiated a potential return.  The zoo was very nice, but not the nicest zoo we've been to.  We did love the naked mole rat exhibit.

And we sat on lots of animal statues:

And re-enacted Abbey Road.  Because Rose Pink has been listening to a podcast about whether or not Paul McCartney is actually dead.

19 November 2023

Rosebud was selected to be one of four kids from her school with artwork on display at the county art show!  We're so proud of her!  She pays serious attention to her art, so it was really a pleasure to see that effort get rewarded.  Here she is with the artwork that will be displayed.  She had talked about this at home, and had even made another warm/cool color drawing at home.

 

6 November 2023

a poem by Rosebud

 

10 November 2023

School pictures! This is Bobo making his tortured face (he hates having his picture taken):

Here is Nut Brown looking handsome and grown up.  

And here is Rosebud doing the weird facial expression that she produces whenever she is instructed to smile:

Nut Brown did this too when he was her age.

 

4 November 2023

October was a really busy month for me this month and pretty much wore me out.  As the Primary president, I was in charge of a special Primary testimony meeting on October 22, and also of the ward Halloween party on October 28.  I looked forward to both of those events by completely dreading them, but they were apparently a lot of fun for everybody, so I'm glad about that.  For the Halloween party, we had a dance between chili cookoff and trunk-or-treating that was so much fun!  This year we dressed up as the ingredients for brownies!

For the trunk-or-treat, we carried the brownie theme further, by handing out Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies from a table full of kitchen items!  Rose Pink was largely responsible for most of the costumes, although I did the lettering for the chocolate and salt, and Mr. Brown made the egg that he's wearing.

We did carve pumpkins (although Bobo just drew on his because he doesn't like the smell) and I didn't really get any pictures.  (Did I mention it was a high stress time?) For actual trick-or-treating, the kids chose different costumes.  They looked great and came home with a ton of candy!  We were out with a group of friends, so that was really fun too. 

13 October 2023

Rosebud told me last night that she had to finish her letter before she could come to bed. This is what I found at her placemat this morning! There was a water bottle carefully placed in the circle in the middle of the page.

3 October 2023

 Rose Pink put a lot of effort into the colors and shading on this coloring page.  She was very pleased with it and gifted it to me with a dated autograph.  I love her continual interest and experimentation with color and artistic creation!

Also she has just covered her dresser in Harry Potter stickers.

25 September 2023

 

Another fabulous pinata creation from Nut Brown and Mr. Brown.  It's for a space enthusiast's birthday party - the Hubble telescope.

Rose Pink trimming Rosebud's bangs this morning.  <3 Rosebud idolizes her sister.

18 September 2023

As we were getting schedules settled and figuring out A days and B days for the middle and high schools, Rosebud wanted to participate as well.  She took her schedule and marked the different subjects in different colors and made sure that it got hung up as well as the older boys'.

6 September 2023

Over Labor Day weekend, Bobo and Rosebud and I drove up to visit my parents in Pennsylvania!  We stopped for ice cream at a place called Handel's.  It was delicious.

The next day there was Lego play with Grandma.  Then we went kayaking on a 'creek' that looked like a river to me.  Rosebud and I doubled up and Bobo got his own kayak.  He was very pleased at his independence at first, but got tired of rowing and ended up tying his boat to mine so we went down the river like a kayak nunchuk.  It was fun to be out in the sunshine on the water.

Home for a rest.  Then a bike ride:

And a cookout:

Sunday morning we went to church, and then had lunch and went for a walk in the woods at a state park.  

Both of them spent quite awhile working on this game that my siblings and I spent hours on when we were kids. Bobo and Rosebud thought it was just as interesting as we did.

Monday morning we went for one more bike ride and then headed home.  It's around three hours, so we can certainly go back again sometime!

28 August 2023

 First day of school!  This photo is actually from getting haircuts the weekend before.  Three kids are at three schools, although Bobo and Nut Brown are in the same building.  They walk to school and Rosebud catches the bus.  We missed the bus this morning, and the other parents at the bus stop said that it's because it always comes ten minutes earlier than the schedule on the internet says.  *shrug*  Everyone survived the first day.  Rosebud was extremely happy (she gave her school a five-star review based on the back-to-school night last week), Bobo was resigned but not in crisis, and Nut Brown is having a difficult time.  We did a lot of back-to-school nighting with all three of them, and I think we're going to make a go of this.

27 August 2023

 Last week I came home from an outing and discovered that everyone was in the den ready to watch a movie together.  Our family loves the Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse movie, and we watched its sequel for the first time together.  We really enjoyed it, and it gave us lots to talk about.  Afterwards we ordered pizza and played D&D together.  Rose Pink is acting as DM and has a story arc she's leading us through.  It was wonderful to do so much together as a family doing things we enjoy!