Octobering

And we're back again!

This week has been busy. I had conferences with students in place of class, and I guest lectured for another class (we talked about reading recipes for cultural significance).

Evelyn is back in piano lessons, and Andrew was sick this week ( a stomach ache that we can't figure out--no vomiting, blood work was clean, no clear cause). And to make things exciting, I went down to Vegas Friday and Saturday for the Las Vegas book festival (and forgot my laptop!). It was fun, but pretty busy.

Dan and the kids went to the pizza factory with Bubby and Poppy while I was gone. Yesterday, they cleared out the garden and took a bunch of boxes to the dump.

Fall break is tomorrow, so we're hoping to play for a bit before getting back to the grind.

Catching up

It's been three months since my last post--I'm not quite sure how so much time got away from me, but we have been pretty busy.

Today was our primary program. It went well, but I'm glad to be done! Oliver has a hard time sitting still (especially on the stand), so it was hard to watch him twisting around to talk to the kids behind him and being too far away to do anything about it. Andrew was one of the main narrators, as he's graduating primary this year, and he did a great job. So did Evelyn, who wrote her own talk on fasting and prayer.

Other things we've been up to:

Evelyn got braces this week. She wanted a before and after shot.

 

We branched out into Halloween decorations, mostly this skeleton kitty for my two cat-obsessed children (the youngest two, in case there was any question).

 School pictures came back! Proof positive that my kids are getting older and bigger, no matter how hard I try to pretend they aren't.

In September, Oliver discovered a sharpie and drew all over our hardwood floor. 20 gazillion treatments later (virtually everything someone suggested) and the lines are fainter, but still there. Sand paper might be our only remaining option!

I also had a chance to go to SLC Comic Con. Jeni got to come with me as my plus one. I signed a few (very few) books, sat on panels, got to attend panels, saw my cousins Kendra and Michaelbrent and my aunt Judy and generally had a great time. (And spent more money than I'd planned on, between souvenirs for my kids and Dan and for me).

Labor day weekend, we went up to Provo and hung out with cousins. Evelyn had a girl cousins sleepover at Justin and Lia's house, while Andrew and Oliver got to hang out with Jeni's boys. Andrew wasn't very happy that we dragged him out of the house that Saturday (I had a book signing in Sandy), but he survived. Monday, we went to the Hogle Zoo with Sarah's family *and* Lia and the kids. 

Oliver had his "girlfriend" Madesin over to play. Sadly, she's been eclipsed by a girl in his kindergarten class, named Mailie (Maylie? not sure of the spelling). Oliver is pretty fickle though: there are at least three girls he's contemplated marrying this year alone. When we arrived for his parent-teacher conference last week, Oliver told me he was going to marry the girl who was sitting there with her mom and the teacher. When I asked him her name, he just shrugged (this was Mailie--he found out her name later). Notably, all of the girls are taller than he is.

At the end of August, Evelyn was in a performance of The Little Mermaid. She was a rainbow beta fish (I think??). She was in the chorus of a huge cast, but she loved it, mostly because she got to go to every practice with her friend Adele. (Also, she really likes Ursula, the eels, and the dark mermaids). For some reason, the night that I was a parent volunteer and could actually take pictures behind the scenes, she wouldn't smile after she got face makeup on. I think she likes the goth look.

Earlier in August, Dan and I were responsible for "hosting" an Eves family extended reunion. Mostly, this consisted of reserving the church cultural hall for two days, planning an itinerary, and then assigning other people to do stuff. It was a little stressful (particularly as neither of us is a natural party planner, unlike Sarah), but we had a good time. We had a potluck dinner, went hiking, had a photo scavenger hunt, shared stories about the Eves' grandparents, and had a picnic dinner in the middle of a rainstorm. (Thank goodness for the park pavilion and all the coats we had in our trunk).

Oh--and school started! For everyone!

There's our whirlwind three months. There's lots of minutiae I'm not including (like Andrew's recurrent insomnia), but these are the big things. With any luck, it won't take three months to post again.

July

It's funny how I think I've only missed a week or two of posting only to find that nearly a month has gone by.

Hence, this will be a catch-up post, heavy on pictures and hopefully not so heavy on text!

We only had a little break for the 4th, as Dan is teaching. So we drove up to Provo Monday night, went to a parade with Sarah, snacked at Chik-fil-a, then had a barbeque in Sarah's yard before driving back to Cedar.

 

 Andrew made a new friend--Dan's cousin Tony's cute daughter Juliette. She loved climbing all over him and he was a pretty good sport about it.

 Evelyn discovered the watercolor pencils.

 She wanted the eye of Sauron. This was my best attempt.

 Tony's oldest, Vince.

That next weekend, Dan took off early Friday morning for the airport in Vegas, where he joined the rest of his family in Dallas to bless Matt and Laurie's new baby. While we wish we could have all gone, we're glad Dan got to go. From all accounts, they had lots of good food and enjoyed themselves immensely.

While he was gone, I took the kids to a man-made lake here in town with some friends. Luckily, our friends were more prepared than we were and had kayaks and other fun gear. Here's Evelyn with her friend Kamri.

 

We stayed for a couple of hours, until thunderclouds rolled in. The nicest part: the kids all went right to sleep that night.

 

Last Sunday, we picked up a (temporary) new addition. Evelyn's friend needed someone to cat sit their kitten, and we said yes. It was an interesting experience. The cat, Merlin, was pretty sweet. He liked to curl up by me and purr when I wrote. But Oliver was kind of leery of him (O. ran into Merlin in the bathroom one night after he'd gone to bed and woken up again, and got so freaked out I had to come running upstairs to find out why he was sobbing). Evelyn was convinced she'd like a cat until we had Merlin--now she's not so sure, and Andrew wants a cat.

 

This week has been busy: Evelyn has had sewing camp two mornings this week (she's making a stuffed fox we picked out the morning of her first lesson--this might be the most expensive stuffed animal in our house). Oliver had swimming lessons, Andrew had track, Andrew and Evelyn had swim team--and somehow we manage to fit play dates around all this. And costuming. Here's Evelyn as the Assassin of Death.

 

We also spent a lot of time this week setting up for the yard sale Andrew has been asking for us to hold since last summer (when I first started sorting through our stored clothes). It was a lot of work--not just getting everything together, but also making two kinds of cookies and Texas sheet cake for the kids (well, Andrew) to sell.

It went pretty well--we had a steady stream of people come by, sold most of the big items, and then took everything remaining to DI. It was hard to let go of some of the baby clothes--it's definitely the end of an era for us. (I managed to give most of the baby clothes to some neighbors, rather than donate them). 

That was pretty much our Saturday: I haven't been so tired in a long time. Glad it's done though.