Parentheticals

We asked the kids what we should write about and they said: "More Snow!" We have had more lovely, beautiful snow this week. It is very fun to play in. On Friday night we went to a local middle school's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. For a middle school, it was a fabulous performance. The actor who played Pharaoh really stole the show with his Elvis impersonation, very good for an eight grader. The kids absolutely loved it and we've been singing the songs ever since. Alison told the kids the story, read them the scriptures, and sang most of the songs before we went, so they were prepared. Rea really understood and enjoyed it. Sara seemed to have fun. Timmy bounced and clapped and sang along to all the songs. He also followed the plot somewhat; when the sons of Jacob came to Egypt, he looked up at us meaningfully and said "Nom nom?" meaning, "Now they'll get some food?" We've been talking a lot about how much

When we asked the kids what we should write about today, Rea immediately wanted to let you know that we LOVE snow. It has snowed so much this year, and it's snowing again as we compose this blog post. We have really enjoyed it. (Except when Mike's car got stuck. But other than that, it's been awesome.) It seems like we got about 5 inches this time through, and it was very wet snow. Perhaps we will make another snowman. Timmy is growing up into such a big boy. He's in the midst of a language explosion; he adds words almost every day and can really communicate lots of ideas. Sometimes he still has that air of, "I'll just keep repeating this to those stupid big people until they figure it out," but we usually do figure it out in the end. He is also doing really well with potty training. He went at least one solid day with no accidents last week. And he's started the funny phase where he says "no" to everything, even things he really wants. T

Timmy continues adding words to his repetoire each day and is making great strides in potty training. On numerous occasions, he has told us he needs to use the potty, gotten there with dry pants, and tinkled or pooped in the potty. However, he has gotten addicted to our current reward system (watching a movie clip on a parent's phone while sitting on the potty) and sometimes likes to sit on the potty every five minutes so he can see more movies. (He prefers movies of horses with background music; the girls want songs from the My Little Pony TV show.) We are very excited about his progress. Sara has come up with a fun new descriptive phrase construction: when she's wrapped up in her new snowsuit, she is "warmer than a warmit" and if she goes outside without it she is "colder than a coldit" and so on. We have fun coming up with "-er than a -it" and laugh a lot. Rea is making excellent progress on learning subtraction. This week they were counting

After having read a post from last year we decided to interview the kids about this week. M: Tell me about the 12th day of Christmas. S: We played. R: And had a crown cake and opened presents. S: that's all we did, and didn't eat breakfast or lunch or dinner, but be ate dinner but didn't eat breakfast or lunch or dinner but that's what we ate. <singing> "do do do do" and I'm a fairy that waved her dangily wand. R: The thing that any fairy can do is change her self into a princess S: Well, I'm a princess fairy - see her wand? M: How about the Tabletop Simulator R: All I know is it is tabletop simulator and that daddy can move things around in it. S: I know chess! M What about that Princess/Jedi Party? S: I was a princess and I was a princess and there were so many princesses - even a ton of the little kids that - Rea, tell the rest. R: It was fun and we played and had a lot of treats. I wished I could stay there. S: Yes. M: Thi

Apparently we neglected to post the week of Christmas.  Sorry.  Here's the quick recap: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we went to Grandma Julie's and visited with Aunt Katie's family. Evenings we came home and wrapped presents and were generally excited for Christmas. Thursday we went to Daddy's work for a Christmas Eve lunch. He got the girls special Christmas Cocoa (hot chocolate from the machine, which is probably 98% liquid sugar) with squirts of caramel (for Rea) and vanilla (for Sara). We figure this is slightly more healthy than melting caramels and drinking it, ever so slightly. We got home and he pulled in right behind us - he'd gone back to his desk and his boss had said he could come home. So we cleaned the house for Christmas and had our Christmas Feast: roast beef and potatoes and carrots from the crock pot, and Grandma Poulson rolls. We also put Samoan cocoa in the crock pot to last the whole weekend. Then Daddy read the Christmas story from the bi

This last week began with sicknesses. Alison stayed home from Church due to feelings of nausea. Alison says that the primary leaders say that Mike does a very good job as a substitute music leader. I will poll the children next time I sub to see if this is true. By evening Alison thought that her sickness was caused by too much cake, so we went to the Poulson family for a Poulson/Brown family dinner. It was awesome. But that night, Rea started throwing up, and threw up all the next day. Sara then started throwing up that night. So if we infected your kids with some throwing-up disease, we apologize. We had planned to do Twelve Days of Christmas activities from Christmas Day until Three Kings Day (January 5th), but the sickness messed with some of the plans. We ended up with multiple Movie Days of Christmas. Rea and Sara were really excited on Tuesday, when they found that Mommy had checked out "Frozen" from the library. The kids have experienced branded Frozen dolls and c