Month: October 2020

Oh Halloween Abe made the kids a pancake, eggs, and tofurkey sausage breakfast. They all had seconds before I came up to help clean and make lunch.

After lunch we all sat around watching Halloween movies until dinner. Well, Abe actually used the time to clean and do house projects, but the kids and I watched movies together. I loved cuddling with all of them, and I didn’t feel too guilty about doing nothing because this is my second week on antibiotics recovering from a UTI that just won’t seem to go away. I think my body is tired from fighting infection and just loved the rest. Well, I know I loved the rest, so I guess that’s all that matters.

After our movie marathon Abe went outside to hide 60 glow in the dark eggs he had spray painted earlier that morning. I bought black light flash light for all the kids and we surprised them with flash lights and an egg hunt. They loved it, and after they had found all the eggs they hid them in the yard for Abe and me to find. The deal was if we could find all the eggs then there would be no candy Sunday, but if we couldn’t find all eggs then they could have one more day of candy. It took a while and was a close call, but Abe and I found all of the eggs–and it was a really fun to do an egg hunt!!

After the kids hid the eggs Clarissa came to me and said, “Can we please go trick or treating?” She put her hands against her chin and tilted her head in the cutest way. I told her to go ask Abe, who was really resolved to be more safe this Halloween. However, at Clarissa’s cute mannerisms he did an about face and took all of the kids trick or treating around the block.

While they trick or treated, I stayed home and folded laundry while listening to classical Renaissance music. It was so peaceful and wonderful. Happy Halloween!

After school on Friday we picked up Lennon, Lydia’s best friend, and came home for dinner and a quick play date before driving with Abe up to West Jordan for our annual Wee Witches excursion.

This year might have been my favorite Wee Witches trip so far. The weather was great, and all of the kids were so cute and well behaved. It is always stressful trying to keep track of Ammon in public, but other than that every moment felt easy and delightful.

We started off with all of the kids getting their faces painted.

After wandering around finding witches and wandering into the shops with the three older girls, Mary, Lydia, Lennon and I ended up all getting witch hats. Abe advocated for the little kids getting a small toy too so Ammon ended up with a light saber that he loves dancing with and Abe picked out this hilarious disco wand for Clarissa.

On the way to dropping Lennon off we listened to Wicked. She had never heard it before and the kids were so excited to share it.

My favorite part of Thursday was swimming while the kids had preschool. I almost missed the little kids’ Halloween program, but they did their song one more time since they were finishing as I was walking up.

This was also the day of Mary’s school Halloween program.

Abe here, chipping in a bit about my team activity tonight. Here is a video and a picture. It was so so nice to socialize a bit with such a great group of people.

This morning Ammon called me upstairs to witness Clarissa do his obstacle course. He would make a great trainer. Whenever Clarissa fell or couldn’t really do a task (like throw the giant pouf into the air and catch it twenty times), he would sound bewildered for a moment before collecting himself enough to count her reps and encourage her to keep going. “Uh, two. Come on, Galissa! (Clarissa in Ammon speak)”. Here is a video.

During the day I took my mom to her doctor appointment and on some errands. It was really fun for me to spend time with her, and Ammon and Clarissa (who were masked up in the car) loved it too.

Then we picked the girls up early and came home to make little mummies out of peppers stuffed with cheese, wrapped in croissant dough, and olives.

The weather has taken a sharp turn to freezing cold, so we brought out the winter clothes this morning. Ammon and Clarissa spent hours, literally hours playing with the clothes.

Also, Ammon had a dance lesson and here is a video of what he worked on:

Then in the evening I let the kids open their new Halloween costumes. We weren’t going to get any because it seemed like this year was a no trick or treating year, but then Lydia begged and begged…and I found a Medusa costume she’d put in the Amazon cart, and I gave in. We should have taken a picture of all of us in costume, but here is a picture of the kids opening them. They spent the next hour playing.

Today we woke up to the first snow of the year! In its honor Lydia got right to work baking pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

I just spent FOUR hours catching up on the blog and don’t want to get behind again so I am blogging today even though it’s not even half over yet.

Abe took the girls to church while I blogged and Ammon and Clarissa watched Frozen, and then Abe went to Lowe’s to get a tool to try to fix our fire pit. It is so frustrating because one of our kids broke it before we ever got a chance to use it, and after Abe got his tool he determined the whole fire pit will probably have to be ripped up and replaced. It is so upsetting to have such a needless expense, but I guess that’s part of having kids.

Abe picked up pumpkins for all of the kids at Lowe’s and then supervised the carving while I continued to slog through the blog. Here is an adorable video of Ammon and Clarissa doing a pre-carving dance:

Also I took a picture of this INSANE school project Lydia has right now:

I’ve been looking forward to today. We had an amazing trip to Arizona and got in Sunday night and we were flung straight into the daily grind. That meant we never fully unpacked, never fully recovered from the travels, had a big backlog of blogging, and we also both got a bit sick. The week was very busy and there was some work to do on the house and yard as well.

So, I’ve been excited to have this catch-up day. Lily and I slept in. We worked on the house, and now we are blogging. Lily also planned all of the upcoming parties she is envisioning for the family (Halloween, Harry Potter Feast, Election Night etc). She is so fun! Recently Lydia spontaneously said that one of her favorite things about our family is that we celebrate everything. All of that credit goes to Lily.

The kids played cutely together for much for much of the day. Lydia pushed Clarissa around in a bin, and here is Ammon posing with Clarissa, who looks like a baby doll.

**Insert from Lily.** This is Lily now. I didn’t want to let this blog pass without recording my session with my psychic from Sedona. I wanted the full Sedona experience but this particular psychic was booked out the week we were there so I just scheduled a Zoom call for the week after. I was really looking forward to it and brought zero expectations to the call. As in, I did not expect her to be a real psychic but I was open-minded to the concept that she might tap into some real energy, and if she did I’d be happy to hear whatever she had to say.

Well, I liked the psychic a lot and I learned that, in my opinion at least, it’s all a sham. I’ve always felt curiosity whenever I’ve passed any psychic sign, and now I’m pretty sure that curiosity is happily at rest. My psychic told me, in no particular order:

• My grandma wishes I would brush my hair and cut it an old fashioned way. (My hair was unbrushed on Zoom with the psychic so I thought this was hilarious.)
• My great Aunt Pat wants me to know I look good in Turquoise. Also her teeth hurt her while she was alive.
• Someone in my family has a dog with long hair, a white throat, and floppy ears that are flopping. (No one has a dog.)
• I should wear supportive sneakers. This will help the arthritis that will occur in my big toe in a couple years.
• I am going to get more formal education and I won’t stay in my current house very long.
• I have a relative in Texas somewhere.
• One of my guardian spirits is named Patrick. He plays Spanish songs on the electric guitar and has the number 5, so whenever I see 5 or hear Spanish electric guitar, think of him.
• My ancestors also gave me a physical therapy exercise to do to release tension in my lower jaw. Thanks, fam!

So it was highly entertaining and I really did like the psychic. I think she really thinks she’s tuning into the dead, and maybe for other people she is but for me I’m happy to know if anyone’s going to be communicating with the dead, it’ll have to be me directly from here on out. At least that’s cheaper, anyway.

I had a really heavy week this week. Aside from catching up from being out of town, I implemented a lot of changes on the team, and I also had 3 people want me to be on their promotion committee and I also helped Paul with his RFP a little. I was getting progressively sicker throughout the week, so I was thrilled at the prospect of being done for the week while I wrapped up my pile this afternoon. As I was working on my pile of work, Mary came into my room wearing Lily’s jeans which was really cute.

On the topic of Mary, she lost a tooth tonight while we were watching Despicable me 2. At night as she was tucked in her covers, she told me that Lydia told her there was a secret about the tooth fairy, but that Lydia wouldn’t tell her yet. Mary begged me to tell her what the secret was. I thought it might be time to tell her, now that she is 8, but I was feeling tired, and I didn’t have the energy to make it feel fun or special. So I called on Lily to come in, and Lily was perfect. She lovingly explained the truth about the Tooth Fairy to Mary. Mary, at one point said, “but fairies are still real.” Lily said that Mary could believe fairies were still real. Mary is so sweet, and it was a sweet and tender moment to break this truth to her. I think it might have been a bit of a disappointing night for Mary if Lily had not made it such a sweet and tender exchange. Mary is so sweet!

Since the interest rates have dropped to the two percents, Abe and I refinanced the home we just bought. So today the kids all went to school for the first time this week and Abe and I drove to Sandy to do the refinance together.

We love our finance guy, Larry Perkins. He was our Sunday School teacher in Salt Lake and so funny, interesting, and colorful. Abe and I enjoyed chatting with him a bit and then we had to race back to Orem to pick up Ammon and Clarissa from preschool. Even though it was rushed, being alone together always feels like a date.

After school the kids had a play date with Eli and Chloe, which made everyone’s day. They played outside just to be safe, and after Eli and Chloe went back home we all had chili, fall leaf chips, avocado, and corn salsa to warm up. I have also been making these outrageous cups of pumpkin spice tea with pumpkin spice creamer. They would be plain silly if they weren’t actually so delicious.

On our trip we listened to the Wicked soundtrack quite a bit. Lydia has painted her face green several times since, I assume in honor of Elphaba. When she’s this thorough, it seems like there is green on her face for a week after, even after she’s scrubbed and scrubbed.

In the evening I had a long phone with my friend from grad school, Hilary. She called while we were in Arizona so I had been meaning to get in touch with her ever since. It was fun to catch up!