• Abe got accepted to BYU! That was happy news. He will start in Spring Term, which is so very soon! I'm still trying to process the fact that my oldest will be a college student! He will be able to keep living at home for now, so he can keep working and save money for his mission. I'm hoping that means the transition will be a little easier too! He is still only 17, and I'm happy to have him close for a little longer.
• We had a homeschool unit on Inventors and Inventions, and invited my brother Philip (who is a patent attorney and lives in California) to be our long-distance "guest speaker." He sent us some powerpoint slides and we put him on speakerphone and spent an hour learning about Intellectual Property. Philip is so smart and interesting and such a good teacher, and we all just love him. We wish we could see him more often. The older boys, especially, had so many questions, and we were sad when it was time to stop! It was wonderful—I kept thinking "times like this are the very reason I wanted to homeschool in the first place." Anyway, this picture of us listening during the call is pretty typical—Ziggy pulling laundry out of the laundry basket. Abe fiddling with straws. Me nursing a baby with a couple girls cuddling up close. And Seb inexplicably under a blanket?
• Zig got this shirt with an "excavator backhoe" on it (his words, except it sounds like "heffator backhoe") and he does not want to take it off. EVER.
These two little boys remind me so much of my first two little boys, it's like I've gone back in time. I still have some of the same matching shirts from back then (12 years ago!) and they even have similar personalities to their older counterparts. Such fun. And also kind of weird and deja-vu-ish.
Teddy turned 5! He's such a smart, happy, thoughtful little boy. He's started reading lessons with me and really loves those. He chose Sebby Cake for his birthday dinner, and got a marble track for his present. He liked all the cards and presents his sisters made for him, too! (Goldie made this card.) We went swimming at the Rec. Center for a birthday activity, while I sat on the side and nursed Gussie. The kids' favorite thing to do was swim by and try to get Gus to look at them!
• Malachi performed with his choir in "Carmina Burana" at BYU. It was a HUGE production! Something like 500 singers plus a full orchestra.
• I repeat my mantra "Just because it has a bunny on it doesn't mean you have to buy it" constantly at this time of year—but in at least one case, it failed.😁
• Daisy and Junie are learning to crochet! I've tried to teach the boys a few times, but they never took much to it. These girls love it, though, and are coming along nicely on their little doll blankets!
• Goldie's drawing of Gerald and Piggy
• Beautiful garage Sebastian cleaned
• Gussie is sooooo skinny. And when he's unhappy and crying, he squirms right out the neck of his suits! I don't even know how he does it, but practically every time I get him out of his bassinet, he is all cold and bare, with his suit lying empty below him like a shed snake skin. I don't know what to do about it!
Try to spot little Gussie in the first two pictures! And the last one is of some of the kids hugging my mom before we took her to the airport one morning. They love her so much!
• Sebastian got his braces off, and posed so cooperatively for this picture to prove it! He really does look very grown-up and handsome these days.
• He has also been working really hard on his drum skills. It is loud, but with the door of his room closed, it's bearable. I just feel bad for the two brothers that share a room with him…but I played the drums myself in high school, so I can't much complain! Anyway, how could I refuse a kid that is so invested in this, he built his own drum kit from practically nothing? It's seriously amazing. He rigged up a can with dry beans on top of a layer of tape for a snare drum, made toms out of buckets and packing tape, saved up for a used bass drum pedal which he attached to a laundry basket, and used who-knows-what-all to suspend a bunch of cymbals. His drum kit just keeps growing! It's really ingenious, though I can't say I'm too well pleased every time I go to cook something and find a new pan lid gone from the kitchen. Plus all my lids and metal trays are now covered with dents…sigh. Seb is industriously looking for odd jobs and saving up money for his own drumset, which we really don't have space for and will bring a whole new set of issues—but he LOVES this. So, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess. He practices for a couple hours a day, and not just banging around, either—he's printed out pages of rudiments and works methodically through technique videos. And his piano practice has never been so good (I think he's realized the correlation between improving his piano and his drum technique). And—in a fun twist for me—he's come to love Rush (my favorite band), as every drummer should. And the other boys have too! I can't tell you how happy it makes me when I walk past their room and hear Seb and Abe arguing over the respective merits of "YYZ" and "The Camera Eye." Boys after my own heart!
Baby Gus continues to charm us all. He really is such a happy little fellow—at least when he's eating or being held!
Though he has his sad moments too, of course. And he really is just TOO skinny! Poor little bird. That last picture is of Teddy singing to him, little made-up songs. And Gus loves it! So sweet.
I finally buckled down (buckled up? buckled under? what IS that expression?) and gave Ziggy a real haircut. Seb jollied him into liking the experience—telling him about how the hair clippers work and what sounds they make, etc. He and Zig have a special relationship, probably because they're both monkeys. Heaven help us.
More of Gussie-Wussie.
• I got these matching shirts (one for me, one Daisy and Junie's size) and they fight over who gets to wear it. Which means I have to wear mine twice as often! :)
• We had a nice day and Sam and I got to walk to church. Now that I'm not choir director and Sam's not YM president, we can walk together! Sam is serving in the nursery right now and it's really great.
Sebastian had his first track meet of the year, and it was a relatively warm day, so we all went to watch! I'm so glad we did, because the very next day everything was turned upside-down by coronavirus and his whole track season got cancelled! It was cute to watch Ziggy going off and sitting all alone and clapping at random times, yelling "Run in da race, Sebby!" (no matter what race it was…girls…boys…whatever). Seb did awesome at the meet and beat his Mile PR by over 20 seconds. And everyone else had fun climbing around the bleachers and giving me heart attacks by leaping up and down the stairs (only one bruised knee…could be worse). (And look at Gussie's big hands on my hands! He has such long fingers.)
Teddy. Wearing the Penguin Suit. With Gus.
Random Gus pictures. I don't know why he's surrounded by pigs, but he doesn't seem to mind?
More randomness. Teddy keeping Gus happy by shaking a maraca at him (this works…for a time). Ziggy making sick Teddy "a nest." And Daisy and Junie matching, as they tend to.
Gus in various nests.
Goldie has the magic touch and is usually able to get Gus to sleep by walking him around. It's so cute to see him in her arms sleeping, as peaceful as can be! The last picture is of her on her way to a little Valentines Tea Party she was invited to. She was SO excited because "I've never gotten to go to ANY kind of party before!"
And for good measure, a few more pictures of Gus, smiling besottedly at his Daddy.
The image of your little Gus, shedding his jammies like a snake-skin, is too funny! I'm going to chuckle over that idea all day.
ReplyDeleteSuch a lot of family joy in this post! How lovely!
Haha. It is quite alarming to find him in bed like that when you're sure he USED to be dressed last time you saw him! :)
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