Christopher got to come with me to nursery today and just quietly joined the older children in their play, Lily sang our family to sleep and told stories in the dark in the Durango hotel, Elsie got into the Durango newspaper (the article is behind a paywall) and is figuring out how to carve the turnip she won at the Durango Historical Museum, Timmy's been practicing poems and jokes for his school Halloween program this week, Abby took a lot of initiative helping us get ready to drive to Durango: she filled water bottles, cleaned the car, packed her bags, and more. Kate keeps coming to choir and doing a great job with her little piping voice, Gina climbed to the top of the Durango Rec Center climbing wall, and I made my first 69 cents from the Android Market.
Christopher believes that everything electronic is his by right and gets very angry when Gina refuses him use her little netbook, Lily has been coloring at every opportunity and asking me to join her, Elsie got the hang of her bike this week, Timmy had is room completely clean and chores all done yesterday so I got to teach him a bit of Wesnoth, Abby's been going outside onto the trampoline just to jump alone, Kate is making fresh spinach pasta even as I type, Gina finally broke down and bought pellets in preparation for the winter, and I finally had Gina take a picture of me today so that I have one to use for my profile at dougbradshaw.com . What do you think?
Christopher still goes for the toilet. The difference is that now he hurries faster when he realizes his mother sees him going for it! Lily and I went to the park together and she found at least 5 different colors of lichen and practiced pumping on the swing, Elsie rode about 15 feet on her tiny bike without training wheels, Timmy has been waking up before the other children almost every morning and looking for something to do, Abby has been asking me a lot of physics questions and has decided that she wants to learn math more quickly so that she can learn more science, Kate made the mistake of holding in some coughs and ended up with burst blood vessels at the surface of her neck and around her eyes, Gina lost her voice today due to a fairly nasty cold that is going around, and I had fun learning to identify trees with Kate.
Christopher started getting into the toilet, pulling on cords, crawling and climbing all over, and generally causing puppy-like trouble, Lily wanted to get her hair cut short like Timmy's but Gina prevented her, Elsie tried to learn to bike and to crochet but got so frustrated in each case that she cried, Timmy had all the girls in his room for a sleepover Friday and then Saturday nights and made a set of rules that they had to keep to stay (amazingly, they willingly kept them), Abby drew some truly nice pictures during conference, Kate crocheted herself a purple belt that she loves to wear around, Gina finished "Rilla of Ingleside," and went on to read a great book written by a family friend, and I kept on finding that scenes from the Silmarillion helped me understand tidbits from conference.
Christopher has decided that his favourite thing to hold is a Wii-mote, which he loves to grab and wrestle and suck, Lily got a huge amount of candy at the homecoming parade and managed to give away or eat it all that night, Elsie was spotlighted in class and one of the things noted was her skill in noticing when other people need a little help, Timmy has been playing Lego Starwars each time he has earned Wii time and it has come to be a large portion of what he talks about, Abby made a fantastic lunch today of baked potatoes, broccoli, cheese, and bacon bits, Kate is the youngest person to come regularly to choir--it's a treat to hear her little soprano piping up there with the women around her, Gina's been talking about having Christopher move from our bed into Timmy's room, (but so far it's only talk), and I got to play ultimate frisbee yesterday and am still sore.
Christopher's army crawl has gotten faster, but he doesn't like to go very far on his hands and knees, Lily kept saying that one plus one was 16. Later I showed her two fingers and asked her how many and she told me "16!" Elsie put on thick black plastic glasses and danced and sang for me, Timmy is starting to get curls and ringlets and Gina is teasing him because she wants him to be willing to get a hair cut. Abby played the cello for us for the first time. What a rich, beautiful sound! Kate loves to wear her BYU economics shirt--on the back it says "talk to the invisible hand." Gina dressed up as a secret agent for primary, covering her head with a low hat and a scarf, and then disappearing into the dark, and I got to teach Lily some basic chess.
Christopher had two days of serious fever and then moved on to nightly breathing troubles due to excessive phlegm, Lily has started climbing up into our top pantry cupboard to get chocolate almonds and other dainties, Elsie got a hair cut (very cute), Timmy got a pretty cool bug book from the library called "Bug Dictionary," Abby had Saturday fun with her two best friends, Kate's peers have been crying at night because of the huge homework loads her teacher has been assigning, Gina slept very little for three nights straight because of Christopher, and I helped out a bit but mostly it has been Gina. I don't know how she does it.
Christopher has started to army crawl around the room, Lily had her first pre-school class here at home with 2 other children, Elsie fell down the stairs on her bike, Timmy asked about and learned about square roots, Abby started a miniature garage sale in our home, Kate got an A+ on her spelling contract, Gina made some fantastic peach butter, and I got the Android SDK up and running and working with Eclipse on our Linux box.
Christopher managed to eat both grass and pinecones, Lily has been singing "My life is a gift, I'm a beautiful queen" to herself, Elsie had her first soccer practices, Timmy found a navy sports jacket and wore it proudly to church, Abby is growing out of her mother's shoes, Kate coordinated 6 younger children, getting them to rehearse a play several times before performing it, Gina managed to be the first to get "Mockingjay" and read it over the weekend, and I got to amaze the kids by starting a fire from coals that had been covered in white ash.
