Today's activities

This morning Andrew took Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander to the Festival of Trees to see Benjamin's creation on display. We didn't realize that Benjamin would be given tickets for entering and had planned originally planned that only he would go with Dad, but because of the free tickets we had a couple of the other kids go along.

Georgia festival ticket prices feel a little outrageous (i.e. more than double) compared to Utah's pricing, which is unfortunate. But I suppose it's (1) for a good cause and (2) completely optional. We don't have to (and didn't) take our whole family to the festival, but sometimes I do wish events could be a little more "family friendly" around here. 

Anyway, here's Benjamin beside his display:

And here are the kids in front of some trees:

Andrew said it was a lot smaller scale than Utah's Festival of Trees, but I imagine Utah's Festival of Trees has been going on a lot longer than the one here in Georgia. Utah's festival is known as "the grandma of all festivals," getting its start in 1970, and it is large. 

All that said, these three (Alexander, Zoë, and Benjamin) had a fun time looking at all the decorations, and the older kids (Benjamin, Miriam, and Rachel) had fun volunteering, and Benjamin had so much fun making his LEGO creation. So it was a wonderful experience overall and we'll likely continue participating in the future (Alexander, Zoë, and Benjamin came home brimming with ideas for LEGO scenes and have been coming up with some pretty cool stuff in the basement).

For her part, Phoebe was a little upset that she wasn't invited. She's always asking if she's invited to things (because the poor dear so often is not invited). I brushed her hair and gave her puppy dog ears (her favourite hairstyle) and we played LEGO together. And then she sat and read books to her puppy Titus (not to be confused with Darla's actual dog Titus) while I worked on one of my final papers.

I actually finished one of my final papers! So now I have one more to write in the next little while. And then a book chapter to finish. And a conference to go to next week. And...things are moving along here. 

Eventually we will settle down for a bit and decorate for Christmas and things like that!

Oh, and here's Phoebe enjoying the crunchy leaves on our walk this afternoon. She likes to sing, "Leaf bump!" as she jumps into big piles of leaves (because she can't say "jump," otherwise she'd be saying, "Leave jump!").