Daily Updates

Part of Peter's time as a missionary is spent doing service. He works at food bank, a Habitat for Humanity store, and the temple. The rest of his time is spent serving with the teaching missionaries in our area. An unanticipated benefit of him serving his mission from home is that we've gotten to see him interact with the Elders. He loves finding people to teach. He loves coming home and telling us about the lessons they had that day. He loves the companionship of teaching the gospel with his peers. I'm sure that we could hear all of these stories in letters or over video calls, but it's pretty cool to watch it happening in real time.

Comfy Cozy

Our local library got a new set of beanbag chairs. Topher loved them so much that he only played on the computer for ten minutes and then parked himself on the beanbag with a book. 

Being Earnest

Tonight my friend Jill and I went to see The Importance of Being Earnest at a local university. It was very funny and also very weird. The whole was thing was set in Andy Warhol's Factory and was performed in a black box theater. As we entered we were invited to have our picture taken to add to the wall. This is the only picture we took of the evening.

I love being the friend that gets invited to the theatre!

Screen Time Bonding

Just Enough Snow

Some parts of the east coast got historic levels of snow last night. There was a chance we would. But we didn't. And I'm really okay with that. The official total for our town was 7.8 inches, but I think we got closer to 5. It was still enough that Cooper and I went out and shoveled the sidewalk (me) and the driveway (Cooper) this morning. And Topher had some fun playing in it. 

Plus, the chance of the power going out was so high (the wind was pretty crazy) that we got a traditional snow day instead of the virtual instruction day we all expected. And it turns out we have enough educational hours that the district didn't add another day to the end of our school year. Free snow day!

The Art of Togetherness

I've been taking a Zoom watercolor class this month. It's stretched me outside of my comfort zone. On On Monday, when everyone was home for the holiday, I pulled out my $6 watercolor set and sat at the table to practice. Almost immediately, Topher joined me and wanted to paint, Then Sophie and Peter and Phoebe joined too. Phoebe didn't stay with us too long since she had a stomach bug and had to go through up.

And on that note, here is the art we created this week.

Topher:

Sophie:

Phoebe:

Peter:

Me:

Topher, inspired by a piece Sophie created:

Sophie, the piece that inspired Topher:

Progression of a Capture

Topher snatched my phone during church on Sunday. It didn't take long for me to discover that it was gone.

Father and Daughters

One of the pictures from the Valentine's dance reminded me of another picture. These were taken a little more than 10 years apart from each other. I love that the feeling is still the same.

Lovely Day

Valentine's Day itself was very busy, but it started with some sweet treats waiting for the kids when they woke up.

Bryan gave me a bouquet of beautiful roses and we had a proper date of dinner and a movie. We saw a sweet film called Solo Mio. It was wonderful to have Cooper and Phoebe available to watch Topher so we could do that.

Peter celebrated by joining the other service missionaries at the Temple in Philadelphia. And Sophie had her first solo babysitting job, so she earned some money for Valentine's Day!

I've Got Those Happy Feet

We celebrated Valentine's Day early by going to a family dance at our old ward on the 13th. The kids had fun dancing, but they seemed to especially enjoy the father/daughter dance and the mother/son dance, which I think is very sweet.

We were at the dance when Cooper got a text from his friend saying that the BYU decisions were out. He had another friend at the dance that was also waiting to hear. We told his mom that the news should be in his inbox. Cooper, Bryan, and I went to one side of the church, his friend and his parents went to the other side. Cooper wanted to check on his own so Bryan and I stood outside in the hallway while Cooper went into a classroom. He came out a moment later, a grin on his face, showing us the acceptance letter on his phone. Bryan and I cheered and hugged him and cried a little. Then we crossed the church and discovered his friend had gotten in as well! We were a happy, relieved bunch.

Rise and Shout!

Cooper got some very exciting news today!!!

Words With Friends

I am so thankful for book clubs. 

My two-person book club is my favorite. But I also love the local book club I attend. There were only five of us there tonight, but the discussion still filled my soul. Books plus friends equals a very happy me.

That is all.

The Best

These two swing between being worst enemies and best friends. I'm glad I got photographic proof of the latter.

Welcome to the Museum of Curated Artifacts

Topher turned our Great Room into a museum. He led me on a tour.

This is the polar bear exhibit,

the cat exhibit,

the dinosaur exhibit,

and the hot air balloon exhibit.

He cut up a piece of printer paper and drew tickets on each one. I needed to give him my ticket before I toured the museum. 

I'm glad he loves museums enough to create his own.

Flip Flip

Sophie decided she wanted to catch a picture of the perfect hair flip. No, I don't know why, but I support the endeavor. These are the results.

He's Aged Well

Today was the 100th day of school and Topher got to dress like a 100-year-old version of himself. He was rather disgruntled that I wouldn't buy him a wheelchair for the occasion. I also opted to not send him with a cane because I worried for the safety of everyone around him. He let us put dry shampoo and baby powder in his hair, but it didn't show up very well in the pictures. He also let me use eyeliner to give him age lines, but not very many. He was adamant that the lines stay on his forehead. In other words, he was more early-middle aged rather than 100, but we tried.

And he's awfully cute.