Sunday, December 10, 2023

The Enderman on the Shelf (next to Tia)

At Christmastime . . .


. . . it's fun to play Christmas Memory by the "fireplace" . . .


. . . and spot our "Enderman on the Shelf" in random places around the house.
You might find him chatting with Tia . . .


. . . awaiting rescue from the staircase dungeon
(at least it's well lit, as dungeons go) . . .


. . . or studying the scriptures in our pantry.


Um, Endie, could you move to your next hiding place soon?
Having a spectator in the bathroom is kind of awkward.

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Flying to Yonkers

Our friend Spencer has loves to fly small planes,
and he recently invited Phillip and me to join him . . .


. . . on a short flight to and from New York City.


When we reached the Hudson River, 
we turned downstream and admired these cool basalt cliffs
as we headed toward New York City.
Centuries ago, these cliffs were a popular place for duels,
including one that ended rather badly for Alexander Hamilton.


Our plan was to fly past Manhattan and circle the Statue of Liberty,
then turn around and fly back to Massachusetts.
A local air traffic controller originally told us we had safe weather to fly in,
but somewhere around Yonkers the clouds turned darker
and we started getting some freezing rain . . .


. . . so we decided to play it safe and turn back north near the Empire State Building.
I was really disappointed that we didn't make it to Lady Liberty,
but I knew our pilot friend had made the right choice.


We stayed ahead of the rain on our flight home,
and landed safely back in the Bay State.


Our friend snapped a souvenir photo of us in front of the plane,
then I went home and spent the rest of the day on a couch
because I'd forgotten that flying makes me motion sick.
Note to self: Take Dramamine next time I climb aboard anything with wings,
whether it's a small plane, a jumbo jet, or a pterodactyl.

Sunday, December 3, 2023

A Hippo at the Concert

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas around here.


Our tree is decorated . . .


. . . the pianists in the family are playing beautiful carols . . .


. . . and we attended our town's multi-church Christmas concert last night.
The COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to these annual concerts for a few years,
and this was the first one we've been able to attend since 2019.
It feels good to gather and enjoy music together again.


At least, it felt good to me.
Todd became bored and fidgety after the first twenty minutes,
so we started taking turns drawing something in the room 
while the other tried to guess the object.
Todd enjoyed the concert a lot more once we started doodling;
I'll have to remember that for next year.


All of the musical groups performed well,
but I think the Unitarian ukulele band was my favorite.
Especially since they brought a big, stuffed hippo as a prop 
for their performance of "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas."

Also, I thought I knew how to spell hippopotamus and ukulele,
but spell check just informed me that I actually don't.
I tried to fix hippopotamus three times, then gave up and let spell check do it.

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Taking Lights to the Next Level

The girls and I . . .


. . . took a little drive to the temple this morning . . .


. . . then we headed home to put up our Christmas lights.
We've been putting lights on the bushes for the last few years,
but attaching lights to our house always felt too intimidating to me.
Joy keeps begging to put lights on the roof though . . .


. . . so I tasked her with figuring out how to make that work.
She did some research on Ye Olde Internet, 
then we bought some clips and a few more strings of lights,
and I turned her loose with a ladder and a prayer.


The clips worked great, and Joy even showed her younger sibs how to attach them
so they could put up the last lights above our porch.


Our house looks so festive!
Great work, guys!

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Hugging a Rug

I can't believe it's the last day of November!
Before we move on to a certain fun-yet-hectic month,
I wanted to share a few random pictures from the last couple weeks
that never fail to make me smile.


I saw this sign in our pediatrician's office.
Take that, germs!


Should the owner of this vehicle call a mechanic or a tree service company?


This rug has Cici-colored splotches all over it, 
so naturally the girls wanted to hug it.


In addition to the cheese advent calendar I recently picked up at Aldi,
we're looking forward to starting on this See's chocolate advent calendar Red Grandma sent us.
A month of fine chocolate and cheese--how fancy!


And speaking of December,
don't let Christmas stress you out!


Remember to relax, take a deep breath . . .


. . . and have a little fun! (And cheese.  And chocolate.)

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Math = EEEEEEEEEEEEE

When I went to Todd's school for parent-teacher conference today,
I learned a lot of unexpected things.


For example, Todd apparently thinks his teeth are his best feature.
And he's grateful that they allow him to eat In-N-Out.
He's only eaten there a handful of times in his life, 
and I think the last one was around his fifth birthday.  
I guess it made a big impression.


I wasn't surprised that Todd thinks he is good at math.
He rated most of his skills G for Good or E for Excellent,
but he rated Math EEEEEEEEEEEEE.
That's Excellent x13, in case you didn't feel like counting all of those Es.

I was kind of puzzled that he ranked Science as G/NS (Good/Needs Support) though.
Isn't science mostly math?
When I asked him about that later today, he said he's actually pretty good at science too.
He just doesn't like the writing part of it.
Daddy can relate to that.

Sunday, November 26, 2023

O Christmas Tree

For tonight's FHE activity . . .


. . . we took down our Holy Week wall decorations
(which I love so much that I tend to leave them up until Christmastime) . . .


. . . then we set up our Christmas tree!


Actually, setting it up is the easy part.


The hard part is fluffing all of its branches
so it looks more like a real spruce.


Done! I can't help smiling every time I see
our beautiful Christmas tree shining in the living room.


O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
how lovely are thy branches!

P.S. I think Anna is more excited about Christmas
than all the rest of us combined.  
She loves holidays and all things festive!