Sunday Afternoons

Ahhh... Sunday afternoons. I am so grateful to have early church again so that we can enjoy Sunday afternoons!!! The last two weeks everyone was so worn out that we all ended up having a long nap, but today was such an enjoyable family day.


We were all involved in one project or another in what seems to be our unofficially appointed gathering place: the kitchen. I love it so much when we are all together!


The projects all began when we decided to make some homemade Valentines for out new adopted grandma in our ward. (She asked Isabelle is she wanted to sit by her a few weeks ago, and Isabelle surprised me by nodding enthusiastically and heading right up to her bench. She asked Isabelle if she would like to call her grandma - so that's how that has gotten started.)

Then the kids started putting crayon shavings between waxed paper and ironing the paper and then cutting the waxed paper into hearts. They look great against a window with the light shining through:
After that, Kami started doing red "glitter nails" -She paints her nails with clear polish and then puts glitter all over them (She learned this from her Aunt Jodi). Everyone else started creating one thing or another using glitter:
I made some Valentine sugar cookies, which Nolan decorated, and we took them visiting.

But this is the best part:

Doesn't he look comfortable? (He moved into the kitchen so that we could hear better.:) Shawn has been reading aloud to us the book: "Yearning For The Living God" by F. Enzio Busche. It is the most inspiring and motivating book that I have read for a long time. I read it last week and realized what a great book it would be for everyone in the family to hear. I got it for my parents for Christmas, because it came with high recommendations, and then when a couple of my sisters-in-law started raving about it, and offered to lend me their book, I decided to read it too.

Heggledy Peg

This week at story time the librarian warned the children that she would be reading a story, Heggledy Peg, that was a little bit scary...

I looked over at Nolan and he had his hands pressed tightly over his ears and his eyes squeezed shut! He wasn't going to risk getting scared.:) He must have been able to hear, somewhat, because towards the end of the book when things started sounding more comfortable in the story he started looking and listening again.

Compulsions

We've got a serious clock watcher around here lately. I first clued in to it when I was pulling into the garage and Isabelle had us all sit and watch the clock in the car because it was about to change to 6:00! Have you ever sat and watched for a clock to change times? It only takes one minute, but it seems like forever!

From there she has progressed to being completely frustrated by the differences in time throughout our house. She comes downstairs and notices the time on the kitchen clock and with a great deal of frustration says, "The clock upstairs said that it was 7:27, and the clock down here says it's only 7:23!" She sits quietly but can't relax until the downstairs clock changes to what the upstairs clock used to say. Then I can't help myself from impishly informing her that now the upstairs clock says 7:31.

We frequently hear her exclaim things like, "Its 4,5,6! Or It's 5, 5, 5!!" You get the idea.

I thought she was close to coming out of her skin Tuesday night at Caden's band concert. There were two digital clocks at the front of the auditorium, and they were usually three minutes apart. When they weren't keeping time, that was all that she could notice, and had to frequently point out their discrepancy. Every five minutes they would skip to the same time, for some reason. Then she wanted me to stare at the clocks with her so that we could see the very moment that they went wrong once again. I'll admit - I couldn't do it - it was too a painful!!


I remember my dad always pointing out time to us kids - I especially remember it as we drove to early morning seminary in the mornings. I figured Isabelle inherited this 'compulsive time gene' from him. Then my father-in-law, who was also at the concert said, "That's just like Marilyn! She is always frustratedly saying, "There is not a clock in our house that is on the same time!!"
Hmmm...

Maybe a lot of people watch clocks. Not me. I use the clocks in my house to give me a ball-park idea of the time of the day - never do notice if one is keeping time with another. When I need to be somewhere at a specific time, I go by a specific clock just to be consistent. Who's abnormal, them or me?

I've decided that people who have a penchant for math notice things like time, and those less numerically- minded (like myself) could care less!:) It's probably a good thing that we have both kinds of people around us.

Curiosity supersedes vanity when you're nine..

Yesterday I was kissing a wart. (I know that sounds like a strange thing to do and I'm not so sure why I was doing it.) Shawn seems to feel that warts are contagious or something, and that led to the thought and question to Maddie, "What if I got a wart around my lips now?"


Immediately and very adamantly, Maddie said that was impossible. I said, "Really?! How do you know?" She replied that once, she had wondered the same thing, so she had rubbed her wart against her nose. She had tried this several times and nothing had happened, so she was sure that you couldn't get warts that way.

The intriguing thing about this is that she has been completely mortified by a wart that is on her hand for several months now. She's kept it faithfully buried under a band aid, applies solutions that are guaranteed to remove warts, and continually laments its existence.

And yet, SHE WAS WILLING TO GROW ONE ON HER NOSE!

A Memory

Tonight when we were visiting the family (our weekly Sunday evening activity) I was reminded, by my in-laws, of something that I had forgotten all about:

When Kami was a baby, we moved into an apartment on the second floor of an apartment building. Shawn's dad came over to help move our furniture in, and when it came time to move the couches in, the couch wouldn't come through the door because of the angle of the stairs and doorway. We had a loveseat that had made it in, but I was really disappointed that I wouldn't be able to make everything as homey and nice as if we also had our couch. I was determined that there had to be a way to get the couch in there as well. I remember Shawn's dad, as he was going to leave, chuckling and saying, "Uh-oh. I've seen that look on a woman's face before!"

Shawn puzzled about it, and then told me that about the only way he could think of to get the couch in was to take the upstairs window out and bring the couch in that way. He talked to the managers about it, and for some reason, they said we could do it. Shawn set up scaffolding, brought the couch in as slick as could be, and then re-caulked the window. I was so happy to have such a great problem-solving husband and I was so glad to have that couch the whole time that we lived there! Was it just a little over a year? Oh well, it was worth it.:)

My mother-in-law said that was when she knew that Shawn would do anything for me. I've just been thinking about that memory, and I have come to the conclusion that I must be the luckiest girl in the world!

Maddie's Science Project

Thursday was a big science fair -all day- for the fourth graders at Maddie's school. She teamed up with her friend Alexis and they experimented to see which drinks were the hardest on teeth.

They chose to experiment with milk, apple juice, Gatorade, sprite and crystal lite. Their surprising finding was that sugar-free crystal lite is actually the hardest on teeth. The tooth that was left in the crystal lite got cavities and was very stained.

Maddie says that they received an A++ on the project, and in my opinion, they earned it just from having to handle those disgusting teeth! They got them from our dentist, flesh still attached, and the secretary said that they'd probably stink, as well. I don't know when I have ever been so grossed out by something. I felt like I should help Maddie clean them up, but just the thought of them was making me feel nauseous. Caden saved the day and helped her with that.Shawn and I went Thursday morning and checked out the projects from all the kids in our ward and also a couple other relations (your boys' projects were awesome, Lanette). I tell you what, these science projects are a lot of work for parents, even when your children do everything they can! There's still an awful lot of over-seeing and assisting that has to go on.

The most exciting event of the day

Last week, Shawn got to stay home ALL WEEK!! We all thought that we'd died and gone to heaven.:)

When Shawn's home, all he has to say in the morning is, "I'm going to go Shower" and the little boys run for his bathroom as fast as they can go. They LOVE to watch him shave! They take in every detail and ask questions and make constant comments about the whole process.