Topher has developed an obsession/paralyzing fear of zombies. He talks about them every night at bedtime to the point that he can't fall asleep. I've been trying to reassure him that Zombies aren't real and that we have a safe house, but it hasn't really helped.
Tonight Bryan started the bedtime routine while I was taking care of a few things. He was snuggling with Topher when I came in to take a turn. Bryan said goodnight to Topher, then turned and said to me, "We solved the zombie problem. Topher said he will hit them with his basketball and I'm going to get a sword."
"That's great!" I responded. "I'm so glad you solved the problem. You're such a great team!"
Of course, a few minutes later Topher came up with a new concern, "But what if you're a grandma and you walk slow like a zombie?"
Last night we attended Peter's induction ceremony into the International Thespian Society. I'm a member of the same organization, so this was a nostalgic evening for me as well as a happy evening for Peter. In addition to being a new member, he was recognized as a Vice President's Scholar for his grades and as one of the graduating seniors.
And of course the whole thing kept Topher up past his bedtime and he was pretty grumpy by the end. After all the pictures we took of Peter, Topher insisted that I take his picture too. Right before I took this, he had a smile on his face and said, "No, a sad one." And then he made this face. So I guess we have another thespian on our hands.
We're nearing the 100th day of school, which means Topher needed to find 100 pieces of something and attach them to a poster. This was assigned as a family project, so I was allowed to help. He named Legos (easy to break and lose), pennies, (I don't think we have 100 pennies), and superheroes (we definitely don't have enough of those) as possible entries. Then I remembered the leftover seed packets from last year's garden. I mentioned them and he loved the idea.
He picked the seeds, did all the counting, and drew all the plants. I wielded the glue gun and wrote the labels. We're quite pleased with the end result.
As of this morning, we have three licensed drivers at our house! We had enough snow fall today that the school district called a snow day, so we were concerned that Peter's test would be canceled. But instead he got to take his test in the snow. The whole thing lasted about twelve minutes and Peter was happy with the result!
And now we really need to find a third car.
Phoebe has been watching the Marvel movies and loving them. She's been inspired to add some of the characters to her drawing lineup. I saw this one that she drew and knew right away that it was my own favorite Marvel character: Peggy Carter.
This weekend Sophie discovered that Maverick would copy her facial expressions while they took selfies. That led to a mini photo shoot.
We had our first official snow day since returning to in-person school today. The forecast called for four inches of snow, so I was shocked when we got the call last night around 7 o'clock that school was canceled. I didn't complain, I love a proper snow day, I was just surprised.
It made sense today though. Our street didn't get plowed until around lunch time. Topher and Sophie were eager to get outside, but the temperature was 24 degrees and according to the weather app on my phone it felt like 16 degrees. We did not go outside.
We spent the day resting, with a little bit of cleaning thrown in so things didn't fall apart. It was kind of nice to have a bonus day where we didn't go anywhere.
My brother Jordan and his kids came to visit for the long weekend. There was lots of energy and chaos and mess and cousin time for almost 48 hours. I focused on spending time with them, so I only have a few pictures of our time together. Thanks for visiting guys!
Sophie, Topher, Bryan, and I attended the elementary school's steam activity tonight. The kids had lots of fun seeing if ketchup, hot sauce, or soy sauce did a better job cleaning pennies (spoiler: the hot sauce), making bouncy balls out of borax and corn starch, and building structures out of all kinds of materials. The evening did end with a meltdown, but it was bedtime and we probably should have seen it coming.
Sophie has been looking forward to being old enough to get her ears pierced for years. Hold on, that didn't have enough emphasis. FOR YEARS. That's better. Since turning 10 in December she's been not-so-patiently waiting. Her day finally came on Friday. She picked out a pair of December birthstone earrings. So far she's been very diligent about taking care of them. Plus, she looks adorable.
Before:
Bryan often listens to podcasts while he's in the car. A few days ago he heard something in a podcast that prompted him to ask Google to set a reminder. He did all of this hands free and didn't check what the dictation recorded. Last night the reminder showed up on his phone. It said, "Ken job fast relief northern China."
That's right. "Ken job fast relief northern China."
We have no clue what it means or what he was trying to remember.
The kids all go back to school today. The only person that was ready was Topher. The rest of us could have used a few more days off. We were all so tired over the break that we had way more screen time than usual. That included this brother round of Minecraft. Topher was completely delighted to be included; his laughter could be heard all over the house.
My total book count for 2023 is 194. That's...a lot. You'll notice that my count increased dramatically during the last few months of the year, when all my kids were in school. So I guess the answer to "What are you going to do when all of your kids are in school?" is: read. Or rather, I guess the answer is listen since almost all of these were audiobooks. My November count would have been higher except that I listened to one book that was 48 hours long and that took some time.
As usual, my list is broken up by month. The titles in italics were for book club (I'm down to one book club, but it's the best), the underlined titles were especially profound, and the starred title (I think there's only one) was a regular book, not an audiobook. I'm adding a new category this year. The titles in bold stuck with me long after I finished reading them. These may have once gone into the profound category, but they're a little different. These tend to deal with harder subjects and may not leave me uplifted, but I still see great value in having read them.
My goal this year is to read fewer books. Seriously. That was my goal the last two years and I failed, but it'll be hard to beat this many books. Maybe I need an intervention?
January:
