26 March 2024

A mom in our friend group has started the practice of giving experiences to friends at birthday parties instead of toys, and the Brown house is firmly on board with this!  Here is Rosebud taking her friend out for froyo at Sweet Frog  for a birthday gift.

 

22 March 2024

 We attended the youth camp fundraiser at church this evening.  Both Nut Brown and Bobo have worked hard on their assigned parts of it, and they both were really hoping it would go well. There were meal options for dinner, and a talent show.  There were two auctions, one silent, and one with a real live auctioneer! We ended up seated at a table with some fun people (Wagners and the Youngs) and enjoyed the food.  Nut Brown and Bobo performed in the talent show, singing a song from Hamilton together with another young man.  (They were awesome.)  The photo is from Nut Brown "having breakfast" with someone else's arms managing the food.

Rosebud and I had a great time with the silent auction, bidding and then re-bidding.  We won some voice lessons for Rosebud, among other things.  The live auction with the auctioneer was so much fun!  Nut Brown's offer of four hours of hard work was purchased for more than $100!  Bobo had volunteered to bring in a dessert to be auctioned.  Rose Pink ended up making it for him, and I outbid everybody to buy it in the end.  Overall, it was a very fun evening!

21 March 2024

 

Monday night we went out to Golden Corral for dinner, which is one of our favorite places to eat. Why? Because although the food is mediocre, there is a large variety so everyone can find something they like and therefore dinner is incredibly low stress.  I also hypothesize that the fact that getting up in the middle of dinner to walk around is expected is another reason that our ADHD family likes eating there so much. The wall behind them in this photo says, "Help yourself to happiness" and that is certainly how we feel when we eat there. Very relaxed and we enjoy each other so much.

The last time Rose Pink ate at a Golden Corral was prior to taking a food safety class. Knowing what she knows now, she just couldn't bring herself to eat the hot dishes. We all commiserated, and a few minutes later Nut Brown came back to the table and told her that he had just seen them set out a new dish of fried fish so she could be certain of how long the food had been out. She happily got up to get some. Nut Brown is so compassionate.

On the way home, Nut Brown initiated singing in the car. They sang songs from Hamilton and Queen and Wicked. It was so much fun to listen to how wonderful my family is together.

20 March 2024

Bobo: I have so many pencils on the bottom of my lockers. I keep forgetting my pencil case.

Rose Pink: Why don't you send them to Pencil-vania? That's where they belong!

Bobo: If you lose something, the first thing to do is clean out your locker.

Nut Brown: No, first you should pray.  I find your lack of faith disturbing.

15 March 2024

 

More artwork from Rosebud. The black stencils are rain clouds. I asked her about the hills at the bottom, and she said, "No, Mom, those are trees!" 

14 March 2024

 Pi Day! Pizza and pie for dinner!

We also got a new trampoline set up in the backyard. There was much jumping and squealing from all four of them as soon as it was safe to get on 

6 March 2024

 

5 March 2024

Bobo, making his angry face at me.  I told him that even when he's angry he's smiling!  One of the things I love about him is how easy it is to make him laugh and cheer him up when he's upset.  And he has such a charming smile!

 

4 March 2024

 Today was a lovely day. During the last several testimony meetings at church, Nut Brown has written out his testimony on one of our small white boards before getting up to share it.  Today while he was doing that he also invited Bobo to do it, and then coaxed him into coming up with him to share it! He said that he would feel less nervous if Bobo came with him.  Mr. Brown and I watched his tender mentoring with amazement, and we were touched by the testimony each of them shared. Nut Brown talked about his opportunity to baptize his little sister, and Bobo opened with a metaphor - that he was like the Holy Ghost because he was there to support his brother - and then shared his testimony that we are never alone because the Holy Ghost can always be with us. Mr. Brown also shared his testimony about how our wretchedness does not keep us from Jesus, and makes God's salvation of us more glorious. 

After church, I sat outside in the sunshine for most of the afternoon. Both Mr. Brown and Rosebud told me how glad they were to see me outside again. Spring is coming, and I am even thinking about planting something!

Rose Pink came home from church with papers to be completed for her missionary application (yay!) and she took Bobo and Rosebud to a state park to hike along a shallow river. She is such a a good big sister to them.  They came home wet and muddy, which Rose Pink did not foresee, but I was not surprised.

Tonight we were invited over for games to the Wines' house as well, and Nut Brown and Mr. Brown and I went. We had a good time! And Mr. Brown got to give some counsel to their son with the same name and the same ADHD. It was such a lovely restful Sunday. 

3 March 2024

 A lot of nights at our house are either really busy so we're all in a hurry or involve a lot of us on individual screens not really interacting with each other. But a few nights ago we had an evening where everyone was happily occupied and busy and there was a cheerful spirit in the house. 

Bobo and Rosebud were playing War.

Rosebud was working on a baby quilt for a friend.

Nut Brown and Mr. Brown were having a D&D conversation.

1 March 2024

 A note from Nut Brown's seminary teacher:  "I was really proud of your boys in seminary today.  I asked them "In your reading today, what titles of Jesus Christ have you see?" and all of them burst out spontaneously with "Wonderful! Counselor!" and sang the rest of the chorus from the Messiah together.  You are obviously raising them right."

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!

21 January 2024

Bobo continued his streak of receiving ordinances in private homes rather than at the chapel, and was ordained to the priesthood at our house on Thursday evening.  My wonderful boys all looked so good that I insisted on pictures.  

Here's the initial one, with no direction:

Trying to loosen them up - so I said, Make a frowny face!  Except that Bobo can't make a frowny face even when he wants to!

Next up then - make a goofy face.  I'm not sure Bobo realized what was going on behind him!

Now everyone's relaxed!  SMILE!  and they all bared their teeth in different ways. 

The ensuing laughter meant that I finally got the more natural smiles that I was hoping for:

 What handsome men!  I love them all so much!