Spooky Story Contest

Both Zoë and Benjamin submitted stories to the Georgia Writer's Museum "Spooky Story Contest" this year. They worked on their stories from July to October, going through plenty of drafts and revisions. Zoë must have tested out five different stories or so. At first she really wanted to set her story at The Devil's Tramping Grounds in North Carolina because that sounded like an interesting place to her, but she was having trouble imaging any details for her story because she's never been there.

So I suggested that she set the story somewhere she's been. 

She eventually settled on Doll's Head Trail, which we hiked last year, and ended up writing a rather hilarious story about a squirrel named Pipipash. We loved that character so much, but Zoë wisely determined that the number of giggles we were stifling meant that her story was silly and not spooky.

Guys—at one point Pipipash passionately called out, "I'm not all fur and no brains!" 

Pipipash was the best. 

But Pipipash was ultimately cut from the story. 

What Zoë settled on was a little too creepy for me. Her doll is a little too blood thirsty for my taste, but Zoë insisted that to water her doll's refrain down would detract from the feeling of the story. 

And that's why I'm not a spooky story writer myself, I guess. 

Anyway, we were checking the website all day for the results...until we gave up...and then we got busy doing all of our Halloween preparations and I didn't think to check until the kids had headed out to go trick-or-treating and I was in the middle of my class and my teacher said something about the emerging scholar award at LRA and was like, "I wonder who won this year...oh, it's so-and-so" and I was like, "Wonder who won, indeed!"

So while he was looking up emerging scholars, I hopped on over to the Georgia Writer's Museum and saw Zoë's name—1st place for fourth grade! 

And then I just had to hold that information inside me until she finally got home from trick-or-treating (she was the very last child to make it home because she stayed up at her friend's house instead of walking home with everyone else). 

Anyway, a very exciting evening for her! You can read her story over at the Georgia Writer's Musuem website!

Miriam's 15!

Miriam turned 15 on Friday! 

She (and Rachel) had some friends over for a game/movie night so we had her birthday dinner and cake on Saturday, but she still opened her presents on Friday. She didn't have much on her list, but asked for some new clothes, some novelty pins, and a book. Most of what was on her list was actually marked "maybe for Christmas?" but that was probably because she only got me her list a few days before her birthday and knew those items would need more time to ship. 

For example, she wants new organ shoes. I can't find or ship those in a couple of days. 

Last time (or the last couple of times) we just got her (boys'/men's) latin dance shoes because they're cheaper than actual organ shoes but are...along the same lines. But now that she thinks her feet have stopped growing she wants real organ shoes. So we'll probably look into that for Christmas. 

Anyway, here's Miriam opening presents, with Phoebe right beside her so that Phoebe can be in charge of telling Miriam which order to open her presents in:

"I've made a huge mistake"

As emotionally exhausted as I was from this week (and despite having a lot of reading and writing to do), Andrew encouraged me to go to bed around 8:30 this evening, shortly after I finished reading bedtime stories to Alexander and Phoebe...and subsequently fell asleep on the couch after they skipped off to roast marshmallows with Daddy.

Here's the thing—it's Friday night! And Miriam's birthday! 

And although we decided to hold off on celebrating as a family (because (a) neither Rachel nor I had time to put a cake together this week and (b) the girls invited friends over so we'd have to rush through our family stuff and I don't like rushing through family stuff) the girls did plan a little fire pit/game/movie night with their friends. 

In a brilliant move, the mother of one of the girls' friends invited Benjamin and Zoë to hang out at their house with their pre/teens, so those two weren't feeling left out.

But Alexander and Phoebe kind of were. 

We had intended to get outside and let them roast some marshmallows before coming in for bedtime, but one thing led to another, and then it was too late to go out to roast marshmallows because the teenagers had moved on to other activities and we didn't want to interrupt. So instead Andrew got out our little "table fire" thingy (which Alexander was a little afraid of because the last time we used it he grabbed the grate without realizing it was hot and burned his poor little hand so badly; fortunately future problems are easily prevented by remembering that everything about this production is hot) and roasted marshmallows inside with those two. 

And I fell asleep on the couch and was subsequently put to bed at the same time as Phoebe. 

When I protested, Andrew said, "But doesn't 12 hours of sleep sound glorious?"

Now, that's true. 12 hours of sleep does sound glorious, but as tired as I am theoretically...my body is also used to getting up and going after five hours of sleep or so. And that's typically five hours of interrupted sleep because Phoebe still doesn't sleep through the night consistently.

Anyway, around 2 AM my body and brain were like, "Time to start another day!"

Turns out going to bed at 8:30 was a "huge mistake."

So I got up—and took a melatonin—and read an article that wasn't on my list of things to read, but which felt important to read anyway, and about half of another article, and did Duolingo, made some edits to my mom's paper, and now I'm finally feeling like I could maybe fall back asleep, so perhaps I'll try it.

Twelve times I've cried this week:

(more truthfully in the past two days)

After a particularly rough meeting with a professor. After a particularly cheering meeting with a different professor. While adding another cousin to the spreadsheet of relatives with the BRCA gene mutation. When Matthew Cuthbert died. When Anne found renewed pleasure in life. When a friend texted to apologize for a lapse of compassion years ago. When that same friend suggested she take my younger-older kids to hang out with her younger-older kids while the older-older kids are hanging out at my house. After my oldest-older kid submitted her college application. When a cousin texted me out of the blue. When I listened to a new arrangement next-to-oldest-older kid is making of a Christmas song. When a girl in my class put her hand on my shoulder after my presentation and said that I did wonderfully and she appreciates having me in class. While reading about the needless destruction of the Jaredite nation. After seeing images of people sitting in the dirt, held at gunpoint, wearing nothing but underwear.

Maybe you've guessed it, maybe you've not...too bad.

While my days on campus are very quiet and I am able to get quite a lot of focused reading and writing in, I also tend to feel rather nervous about going to class while also feeling guilty about not being home with my kids. It's complicated, I know.

But, I always leave them with a long list of things to do and they do just fine with Daddy at home. 

My favourite part is when they email me (or text me or send a discord message of) little bits of assignments, to prove to me that they're doing their assigned work. 

Today I asked them to read some Halloween poems (their choice) and then to revisit their Halloween poems from last week to see if they wanted to revise their poem or perhaps write a new poem. 

Inspired by Phoebe's relationship with her pumpkins, Zoë wrote this poem. To give you context, Phoebe has been sleeping with not one but two pumpkins every night for weeks now. She carries them around and plays with them all day, pretends to feed them, takes them outside with her, drags them back inside, brings them in the van when we go out, reads them stories. It's...it's a lot. So read this poem knowing that we tuck in Phoebe and her gourds every night:

My best friend’s suit is bright orange, but has no tie at all

His nose is always yellow, and always set aglow.

His eyes are cozy triangles; but do not bring him in bed—

He’s round and hard and lumpy, as everyone has said.

Maybe you’ve guessed it, maybe you’ve not, but…

My best friend’s a pumpkin, and he’s the only friend I’ve got!

The attention to meter and rhyme is spectacular. There are a few places where the language could be tweaked, but overall I was so impressed that I thought for sure she had pulled out a mentor poem and simply adapted it. But evidently this was all her work.

Space heater

It's mid-October and sometimes chilly, but we're firmly decided on not turning the heater on until November. Just to see if we can (we totally can). 

Andrew (the cheater) moved a space heater into his office and when he turns that puppy on and closes his office door, things get pretty roasty-toasty inside. 

I was in the kitchen just now and he left his roasty-toasty office, leaving the door wide open. 

When I left the kitchen I had a moment of panic when I was hit by a waft of warm air, right in the face. 

"What in the world?!" I asked to no one in particular, sniffing the air. "Is the heater on? What is going on?"

Rachel and Miriam came to investigate with me (the little kids, the younger kids, the kids from Benjamin on down were taking care of Luna) and they agreed that the air was certainly much warmer at head level than ground level. 

This makes sense...because hot air rises. 

But where was the air coming from?!

It was Miriam who pointed out that Andrew's office heater was on and that air was spilling out of his office into the hallway. On his way back to his office he encountered us all bobbing up and down in the hallway, "Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold."

The difference was astounding. 

Quadoculars

Phoebe found a toilet paper roll ("toy-yet paper roll," as she says) and coloured on it and started using it as a telescope, only she wasn't satisfied with the idea of a telescope. Only one eye? How lame is that?!

"These 'noculars are broken," she insisted. "I need another toy-yet paper roll so I can fix them into real 'noculars!"

I didn't know where another toilet paper roll was off the top of my head (because I'd just donated all our toilet paper rolls to Alexander's recycled art class at co-op), but Miriam said she and Rachel had a toilet paper roll (or two or three) kicking around their bathroom. 

She brought them up and Phoebe was in toilet paper roll heaven. 

Do you know what's better than a lousy single-lens telescope? 

Binoculars.

Obviously.

Do you want to know what's better than binoculars?

Why, quadoculars, of course!!

A costume party

Our next door neighbour had a birthday party last night and both Zoë and Alexander were invited. It was a costume party, which is always fun, but always a little bit frantic because it moves my costume deadline from Halloween to...whenever the party is. On a more positive note, two halloween costumes are completely finished so that's a little bit off my plate the next ten days or so!

Zoë wanted to be Fleur Delacour this year. I ordered a dress for her that she felt matched the Beauxbatons vibe. She has been living in it for a week—sleeping in it, playing in it. We basically have to wrestle her out of it in order to wash it.

Primary Program

We had our primary program today and (it ran a little long but) it went great! 

Phoebe made Grandpa take her onto the stand to join her nursery class in singing "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam." Zoë played "Book of Mormon Stories" while the rest of the primary kids sang. We had a mother-son duet. Another family sang a song with ukulele accompaniment. We sang a song with sign language ("I Feel My Saviour's Love"). We even broke out the handbells for one of our songs ("We'll Bring the World His Truth"). The kids did wonderfully!

Everyone also had a speaking part and did great!

Homecoming queen

Rachel's friend Hunter invited her to go to homecoming at her high school. Hunter and her sister came to live with their aunt (who is in our ward) a few years ago. Hunter is the other senior young woman in our ward and for a long time she refused to come to anything because she thought she'd be all alone at activities. But then her sister threw herself a birthday party and both Rachel and Miriam came and Hunter was like, "I forgot about Rachel!" So now she comes to church activities and dances and game nights and both Rachel and Hunter are happy to have another "old" young woman around (since the next oldest young women are (a) Hunter's sister and then (b) Miriam, who are both about two years younger than Rachel and Hunter).

Anyway, Hunter's sister is rather gregarious and talkative. She has a ton of friends at school and wanted to go to homecoming with them. And Hunter wanted to go to homecoming since it's her senior year of high school...but Hunter is not as gregarious as her sister. But she knew that she had fun hanging out at church dances with Rachel, so she asked if Rachel would come with her. 

So those three girls got together and took pictures and had dinner and then went to the dance. They had a fun time (though they all not-so-secretly agree that church dances are superior because (a) the music isn't quite as loud, (b) they allow kids to go outside to get some fresh air, (c) they play complete songs rather than snippets, (d) they play at least a few slow songs, (e) people aren't making out all over the place). 

Rachel drove herself over to Hunter's house, where she found that she (Rachel) and Hunter's sister had picked out matching dresses. In all the pictures they took together they put Hunter in the middle, flanked by dark green dresses. I don't have those pictures, but I do have a few I took of Rachel before she left. 

Here she is holding a white pumpkin, poor Yorick:

Phoebe the caboose

I snapped this picture one fine morning when we were all having a little sleep-in together. "Little sleep-ins" is how we survive because this little girl is still not the very best sleeper. We take the sleep when we can get it...and where we can get it. 

She enjoys being close by, both a night and during the day. 

Alexander is 7!

Today is Alexander's birthday. 

It's also Canadian Thanksgiving. 

And Indigenous People's Day in the United States.

Sometimes I feel bad for celebrating Thanksgiving on what was Columbus Day in the States (since both Canadian Thanksgiving and that holiday land on the second Monday in October) because that might look like I'm celebrating Columbus Day (which I'm not), which losing its footing to the counter-celebration of Indigenous People's Day (with good reason). 

Though Canadian Thanksgiving has a separate history from American Thanksgiving it's truly no less colonial in nature. And the selection of the second Monday in October—though claimed to be because it's often the last nice weekend of the season—is suspect. Canadian holidays often align with American holidays even if we're completely unaware of it.

Ever heard of Family Day? It's a holiday that celebrates families—you get a day off of school and work and there are discounts at family friendly venues and it's great fun! It's the third Monday in February...which just happens to be when they're celebrating Presidents' Day south of the 49th. 

Coincidence? 

I think not. I really think it's simply convenient for Canadian institutions to have these kinds of "bank holidays" on the same schedule that the American Superpowers have their bank holidays.

But that's just my theory. 

Anyway, we had Thanksgiving dinner for Alexander's birthday dinner and Andrew went all out because we aren't hosting Thanksgiving this year (for the first time in a long time)! 

Here's our little harvest of garden carrots that we had with our meal:

Pumpkin patch

Alexander, Zoë, and Benjamin got to sleep over at Grandpa and Darla's house, along with two of Darla's grandchildren—Noah and Minnie. Noah is Benjamin's age and Minnie is Zoë's age. Alexander was just along for the ride and loved being the odd-man out and the youngest kid around because Grandpa and Darla just doted on him.

They decorated Halloween sugar cookies, they made little corn on the cob decorations out of beads, they made a turkey craft, they watched a movie, they camped in the back yard...they had a great time!

The older kids played some Dungeons and Dragons (which also happens to be the movie they watched). 

We met them at a little pumpkin party hosted by the realtor who sold Grandpa's house recently. He (the realtor) was a good friend of Darla's husband Dave (who was also in realty, though in commercial realty rather than residential realty). Anyway, they had a bunch of pumpkins scattered across their lawn for people to choose. I think we took an embarrassing number home...but Phoebe was just so excited to be at the pumpkin patch. She wanted to take all of the pumpkins home.

She had been consoling herself with this pumpkin patch idea all weekend!

"I don't get to sleep over at Grandpa-Darla's," she'd explain. "But I do get to go to the pumpkin patch. I do!" 

She was living her best life, collecting a whole pile of pumpkins for herself.

The dentist

We took everyone to the dentist over the course of the past two weeks. Here's the low down:

1. No cavities for anyone. Electric toothbrushes are amazing.
2. My dentist really wants me to get braces to fix my bite. 
3. Miriam is having a lingual frenectomy/frenotomy this week. Apparently she's been tongue-tied her whole life and...that's true. She has. We have made fun of her inability to stick out her tongue for ages. But she never had any trouble eating. And she never had any sort of speech impediment. Apparently she's just really good at compensating. But our dentist said there's lots of new research linking tongue posture to breathing issues like sleep apnea later in life (see also: the reason the dentist wants me to fix my bite). 
4. Miriam, Benjamin, and Zoë all need to visit the orthodontist as well. Miriam is ready for round two of braces, which should go a lot quicker than round one. Benjamin needs to pull down what we call his, uh, narwhal tooth. And Zoë has several teeth that haven't erupted (but which are present and need to be coaxed down somehow). She's had gaps for years it feels like. Alexander was on the cusp of needing his gums sliced to allow his front teeth through but I think the threat of that made him will his two front teeth to start making their way down after months of that big ol' gap up front.
5. Rachel laughed at everyone because she has beautiful teeth.
6. Phoebe was so sweet and cooperative (which was a real shocker given her behaviour in the past).  

Halloween Twister

After a brief talk about traditions for our family night lesson, we broke out our traditional Halloween Twister board because...we've been playing it during October for years and years and years. It's an easy tradition to do every year because we always have the supplies on hand so it costs nothing (at this point, though I think it once cost us like $5 or something), requires virtually no prep work (aside from making the kids pick up all their stuff from the floor), and everyone seems to enjoy it (though also multiple people cried about it). 

Those are the best kind of traditions, in my opinion—free, easy, and fun (the tears are optional).

Here are the youngest three playing together (though apparently that's an offensive term to Alexander because he's a middle-aged kid):

Conference crochet

Rachel spent the Saturday morning and afternoon sessions finishing up some essays while passively listening, so that she could go to the Saturday evening watch party the youth were having without worrying about whether or not she was going to complete all of her homework. She's taking a full load of classes at BYU-I this semester. 

On Sunday she sat and watched conference with the rest of the family, bringing along her (2023) temperature blanket to work on. I grabbed a needle to start working in her ends while she was crocheting. When Phoebe saw us both working on the blanket together she came up and said, "Ooooh! Tan I be in dat banetet wif you?"

And how could we say no to a request like that?

It actually isn't Handel...it's Beethoven.

 I didn't sit and listen to Music and the Spoken Word this morning, but it was on and some of the kids were watching—Miriam in particular was sure to watch it. When I walked by the room and heard the 'Hallelujah Chorus' from Beethoven's "Christ on the Mount of Olives" playing, I poked my head in and said approvingly, "This is a cool arrangement."

"Oh, it actually isn't Handel," Miriam said. "It's Beethoven."

"I...didn't even try to guess the composer, so..."

"Oh!" Miriam stammered. "I just..."

"Did you think it was Handel?"

It was clearly not Handel, but I had missed the introduction to the song, while she had not, so she knew it was Beethoven.

"No! I knew it was Beethoven. I thought you thought it was Handel."

"Weird," I said. "Because...once again...I didn't even make a guess."

We spent the rest of the day joking about liking things (and having those things not be by Handel). Miriam took those teasings like the champion she is. 

But then in the last few minutes of the last session of General Conference, it was announced that the closing song would be 'The Glory of the Lord.' I looked over at Miriam.

"Not that 'Glory to the Lord!'" she insisted.

And then President Nelson started speaking quoting from Handel's Messiah and before we knew it—yes!—the Tabernacle Choir was singing Handel's own "And the Glory of the Lord."

We all laughed for several minutes before settling down to enjoy the song.

A boy and (not) his dog

It's really too bad that I'm not a dog person.

Or a cat person, as it turns out. I don't know if it's because I'm "the mom" (they tell me that's what I am) or what, but our cat will come and meow and meow and meow at me like she's one of my own whiney children and it drives me nuts. She doesn't cuddle. She makes huge messes with her food. 

I have turned into my mom: "Animals belong outside!"

Like, I have enough trouble keeping up with my humans, thank you very much. 

And as needy as our kitty is, I imagine dogs to be much, much needier. They need walking and playing and they're all the time panting with their stinky doggy breath and shedding their doggy fur. 

But I can understand why people love them and it's really too bad I'm not a dog person because Benjamin is a dog person. Or, at least, he is a dog's person. 

I attend the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs!) and our mascot—evidently the greatest in college football history—is a...dog (again, Go Dawgs!)...specifically an English bulldog (Go Dawgs!). But because of the whole dog thing, Athens tends to be a very dog-friendly city. That's perhaps an overgeneralization, but I've seen dogs lots of places on campus and around town that I haven't seen on other university campus/towns. People are very proud of their dogs. 

Golden Shovels with Green Gables

We've been reading Anne of Green Gables and started a "golden shovel" poem together (ages ago). I had the kids finish up their poems drafts on Tuesday while I was on campus and it was lovely to see these come through in my email.

Basically, we took a line from AoGG, "The birches in the hollow turned as golden as sunshine," put those words down the righthand side of our page and then wrote into those words. It can be harder than it sounds to pull off!

Here's Benjamin's:

 I was meandering through the
countless birches
that made up the greenwood in
Tongass NationalForest. The
fir and maple hollow
that I found myself turned in turned
into a burning  torch as
the golden
flames reached the temperature as
burning sunshine.

Looking forward to some calmness

So much happened last week...month? 

With the school shooting in Winder at the beginning of the month, and then the hurricane at the end of the month, we have felt like our phones have been just about blowing up with public safety alerts. We were very lucky to have so little damage in the storm. Our friends in Tallahassee didn't suffer too badly either. We can't say the same for our friends in Augusta and especially not for our friends in Asheville (though I did finally hear back from my friend Emily (who taught English in Voronezh with me) and she is, at least, safe. Asheville has been entirely cut off from the world—no roads, no internet. Western North Carolina was hit very hard. 

So we've been feeling like we're in a perpetual state of panic and/or mourning this month. 

*****

Naturally, the kids all skipped out to play outside once the hurricane blew over. The neighbourhood kids were all so happy to have had such a long weekend. The grown ups were all stressed out about trying to catch up on the work they'd put off (while attending to hours of household maintenance and childcare duties they weren't necessarily planning on (I mean, we always plan on having our kids at home while we work because that's our norm, but our neighbours typically send their kids to school when they work at home (perfectly valid); and none of us had really set time aside in our work calendars to prep for a hurricane, you know? That's outside of our normally scheduled week). What I'm trying to say is...that we sent Phoebe outside to play under the supervision of her older siblings. 

Naturally, they eventually abandoned her because—let's face it—babies can get kind of boring. So the kids were all playing together and then Phoebe was just...exploring the yard on her own.