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Recently found this unpublished story from a year ago from Nut Brown about two mammoths who battle first with bullets and then with tusks.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

31 January 2016

When 4B came home from the hospital, she cried tiny little cries just like a sad kitten.  Hereafter she will be known as Kitty on this blog.  Nut Brown decided to teach Kitty to talk one day.  "Kitty," he said, "let's start with the first vowel sound of A.  Aaah, aah, aah."  As you might imagine, Kitty looked at him, and then past him and then fell asleep.  Later, when she started to cry, she cried with an 'aah, aah, aah' sound, and Nut Brown exclaimed excitedly, "That's the sound we were working on!"

Driving in the car the other day, a song about hooking up for sex came on the radio, and Rose Pink asked what they were talking about.  Mr. Brown gave her an explanation about how they were talking about the DC superhero universe, and the difference between green Martians and white Martians and how the lyrics were discussing it.  She pressed for details about a particular line, and stymied, he said finally, "It's about getting together to have sex."  And she said, "I know.  I just wanted to find out what you were going to say."

30 January 2016

Bobo has been particularly silly lately.  This afternoon, walking home from the park, he put his hands in his pockets and made machine gun noises.  When I looked down to check out what was going on, he told me that he had 'pocket guns'.  Very efficient for a cold January afternoon.

He has started in the Sunbeam class in Primary and thinks his teacher is awesome.  The other day we were home alone while Mr. Brown had the older kids out, and I suggested that we make some love cards for Mr. Brown.  Bobo instead wanted to make some for his teacher.

He brought home a drawing from his Sunday School class that said, "I can be happy when I say I'm sorry."  He had it in his hand and came up to me in the hallway and said, "I can be happy when I say I'm sorry."  Then he looked up at me, stepped on my foot, beamed at me and said, "Sorry!"  He and I both laughed and laughed.  I'm not sure what that lesson was supposed to teach him, but I guess more laughter is always a good thing.

20 January 2016

For her eleventh birthday, Rose Pink decided on a 'white elephant' birthday party.  She'd participated in a white elephant gift exchange for the first time last month, and enjoyed it so much that she wanted to repeat the experience.  So she asked her guests to bring a $5 gift for the gift exchange, and they played some other games, and broke a pinata shaped like a white elephant.  She and Mr. Brown worked on the pinata together, and we filled it with the last of the Halloween candy.

Nut Brown was enlisted to give elephant rides.  He and Grandma made up his costume- Rose Pink lent him the white clothes.

When I asked Bobo if he had a gift for the gift exchange, he ran right upstairs and got a baby toy that had an elephant as part of it.  Perfect choice.  Here he is 'helping' Grandma wrap it - actually he's busy using the scissors to cut something, while Grandma wraps it.

And here's the birthday girl with her cake:

Because I'd just had a baby five days before, our good friends offered to host the party at their house instead.  So the baby and I stayed home, and Rose Pink hosted.  From all accounts, it was a good time for everyone.  Mr. Brown said that she was an excellent hostess, and she came home satisfied.  Happy birthday, Rose Pink!  So glad that you're in our family.

20 January 2016

Tonight Bobo barged into the bathroom while Nut Brown was on the toilet and a fierce argument ensued.  Nut Brown in frustration shouted, "Bobo!  You are a disturbance in the Force!"

Bobo asked Grandma for help cutting out a picture of his family for his Sunbeam class (can't believe he's a Sunbeam!).  They cut off a strip on the bottom, and he said, "This says, I love my family except when they ask me to clean up the floor!"

A friend said to Bobo, so are you a big brother now?  and he said, "Yes, I am, I am SO big, but no beard."

18 January 2016

After a month of scary high blood pressure and the onset of cholestasis of pregnancy (again), the doctor decided to induce at 37 weeks.

4B was born without issue on January 12.  She is the sweetest baby - so calm and unfussy, very snuggly and easy to please.  She's a tiny little thing- she started at 5 lb 15 oz, and is slowly working her way back up towards 6 lbs.  We're dressing her in preemie clothes and they still hang off her.

She has all this dark brown hair and dark eyes that are already looking around at us and at everything else.  We are all of us totally in love with her.

15 January 2016

December is always a rush.  Here's the quick version of how we spent the month:

Mr. Brown was asked to be Santa at the ward Christmas party, I think because of his beard.  He had a good time figuring out how to dye it white (face paint, it turns out).  Rose Pink made her own costume to be his elf.

Our friends the Peers came to town on a Saturday.  We hung out, went out to eat, and then went down to Campus Martius to check out the ice skating.  It was cold and late and the line was too long so we didn't skate though.

We got a very little bit of snow.  This winter has been extremely light on the white stuff, to our general chagrin.  It was a blessing not to have to shovel in December when I was eight months pregnant and Mr. Brown was so sick.

 

Christmas Day!  My parents came up from Pennsylvania to spend the holiday with us, and it was fun to have them.

Aunt Joellen sent Star Wars t-shirts for all the kids, which they wore to see the new movie in the theater.

General weirdness (nuts in the Christmas stockings)

Grandma and Grandpa gave Bobo muffin mixes, and he loved making them up himself, and then getting to pick who got to eat them.

The day after Christmas we drove up to see the Peers and that was a lot of fun.  Bobo spent his last Sunday in nursery in their ward, which was nice because he really loves that nursery teacher.  When we were up there in the fall, she helped all the kids make this tree with leaves, and Bobo has kept his on the fridge ever since.  When he found out we were going again, he went and got it so he could pack it and bring it with him because he was looking forward to going to class with that teacher again.

Phew.  Made it to the end of the month!

29 December 2015

Bobo found a pedigree chart that Rose Pink was working on.  I told him that we could substitute his name and it would be the same for him.  He liked that idea very much and pleaded with me to print a blank one for his 'grancestors'.

I just listened to Rose Pink switch her left and right hands to play Canon in D in yet another variation.  Having memorized the original, she's messed around with keys, tempos and syncopation, and now she's switching the parts.  She bought herself Harry Potter sheet music for Christmas, and has started teaching herself to play it.  So cool to watch her be in charge of her learning.

24 November 2015

On Saturday we got our first snow of the season, and it was a big one!  The kids spent as much time as they could outside building snowmen and rolling around in the snow.  Bobo got a bunch of practice putting on his snow gear.  Rose Pink actually got up early on Sunday morning so she could go out before church and play in the snow some more.  That girl has legendary snow love.  It was so fun to have the first snow be really serious snow that the kids enjoyed so much.

This weekend was Rose Pink's piano recital as well.  The teacher structured the recital as a 'piano play' where she worked all the kids' music into a story about a spaceship from Earth finding a planet called Pacem and peace on earth, etc.  Rose Pink performed Canon in D, which she has been working on since the summer.  Here she is at the piano in the spaceship:

At the end of the program, the teacher handed out the medals.  Her students all earn points through the year for practice time, remembering their books, cooperation, performance, etc., and the top points earners win gold, silver and bronze medals.  Rose Pink tied with another student for the gold.  She has consistently applied herself in a very mature way to her practice and it was nice to have her hard work acknowledged.  She said, "It was so nice of Mrs. Martin to pick me" and I reminded her that this is an award that she earned through her own efforts.  I'm so proud of her.

Here she is with the chocolate piano she won:

19 November 2015

The children are making their own advent calendars, I think because they think I'm not going to get around to buying one like I usually do.  At this point, they're probably right.  Also, why would I discourage such initiative?  This year we're going to do a German-style advent calendar and hang socks on a line across the living room, one for each day of Advent, with a treat and a scripture.  It'll be great.

18 November 2015

After reading 'The Big Orange Splot', Mr. Brown asked the kids to draw their house (my house is where I like to be, and it looks like all my dreams).  Rose Pink above, Nut Brown below.

17 November 2015

Now that soccer season is over, we have more time for our true passion: the Lego Star Wars video game.

15 November 2015

We were going to dinner at our friends' house and bringing the ingredients for pizza.  It was extensive, and Rose Pink and Nut Brown each made a list to make sure we remembered everything.

18 November 2015

Because life with kids is so delightfully unexpected some days...

Bobo has learned the word 'thingamajig' and how to use it.  He is still working on 'th' so it comes out 'finagamajig' and it makes me laugh.  'Fingamajig' has replaced 'dat fing' in his vocabulary and I think it's an improvement.

Our FHE lesson on Monday was on the law of chastity, which, according to Rose Pink, governs our 'secular behavior'.

Last night Nut Brown and I were reading in 2 Nephi the chapter that includes the wolf lying down with the lamb. 

Nut Brown: That's not how it works!  Wolves don't lie down with lambs!  They eat them!

Mama: Let's try the Socratic method.  Why do you think the wolf might lie down with the lamb?

Nut Brown: I don't know!  Maybe because the lamb ate his brother?