Races, Bubbles, Missions

I posted before about the end of cross-country season, but it was not, in fact, the end. Or else I'm out of order somewhere, but at this point, who can remember? Malachi and Daisy had some beautiful races at the end of their season; the type of races cross-country runners SHOULD run, with dirt paths and hills and rivers and little gullies to run through. It's especially fun when Sam and/or the older boys can come with me, so I don't feel like I have to watch the little ones nonstop, and I get to wander around and enjoy the outdoors a little. Although I also like sitting and watching the kids play on playgrounds. They are so funny, and the things they choose to do on the playgrounds change so much over the years—from Gus toddling up and falling down the stairs a thousand times and inching backwards onto on the tiny slide, to Ziggy bravely climbing walls and sliding down the tall slide with no hesitation, to Teddy climbing up and sliding down fireman poles and hanging from the first monkey bar hopefully, to Goldie and Junie racing across monkey bars and even climbing up on top of them. I love watching it all.

We did some other things in October/November too…

This was a fun race because it was on Halloween—well—the day before Halloween, but Teddy wore his costume and there was a Halloweeny feeling in the air. :)

• Paper airplanes we made for Family Home Evening  • Clementine is a breadstick  • Another creative way to read the same book at the same time.

Another family home evening, blowing bubbles this time. We used everything we could scrounge up to be bubble blowers, and some of the kitchen utensils (slotted spoon, strainers) actually worked quite well! I love those four sympathetic bubble-blowing faces watching Daisy blow her "square bubble" in the last picture (click to enlarge).

• Bucket-head robots • Gus is looking very concerned and pointing at something up high. What could it be? • Aha. It is Caw, stuck up in the pergola. How did this happen? How??!

• Seb at the end-of-season banquet with his friend Noah. They don't look THAT similar here, but when they are running I always get the two of them mixed up. Something about their blond flowing hair, perhaps! • Seb went on two post-season cross-country trips, one to Arizona and one to California, to run regional races. He fell in the Arizona race and never quite recovered from it, so that was disappointing. But he did great at Footlocker; 23rd in the Junior Boys race! It's fun to see this group of boys becoming such close friends. They sure spend a lot of time and work hard together!

• Zig update: he's been into multiple hats lately, like the man in Caps for Sale. He gets frustrated when one falls off, which is every few minutes, but that doesn't stop him trying. • He also spent lots of time trying to wear costumes that were way too big for him, tripping over them and falling down, and then being mad when we tried to get him to take them off. He looked so funny in the big gorilla suit! Because it's such a dark black, you can't really tell that the legs are bunched up, so he just looked like a very oddly-proportioned gorilla!  • The last picture is when he got a "hot chocolate bomb" in primary, which he was supposed to save till he got home so he could put it into a cup of warm milk to make hot chocolate. He ran in so proudly to show me "Look, I saved it for later!" There was about 1/6 of it left in the bag. Ha! Do you suppose he would pass the Marshmallow Test?

Thanksgiving! We had 24 people for dinner, which isn't quite as impressive as it sounds because half of them were just…our own family. But it was still quite a big feast and it took lots of get everything cleaned up and ready! The girls helped me make five pies, and they were all SO good. We are collecting quite a large number of pies we can't do without! Lemon Sour Cream is my favorite in the world, but Abe and Junie like the pomegranate best, and Goldie and Seb specially requested the Peanut Cup Pie (which my mom disapproves of—"too much candy!"—but which is very good). Daisy can't live without chocolate chip cookie pie, and come to think of it, I can't either—even if it doesn't all get eaten, it's SO good with ice cream the next day! And the apple oat crumble is a new recipe we've made several times this year (verry loosely adapted from this recipe)— perfectly Fall-y and so easy because I don't peel the apples! Yum!

It feels a bit wrong to be going on so long about pies when there was a much MORE important thing about this Thanksgiving… Abe announced his mission call to the Dallas Texas East mission! He had gotten his call that Tuesday before Thanksgiving, with no fanfare—he came upstairs to my room, said, "My mission call came! I've already read it." And I said, "Oh! Hooray! Where?" and he said "Dallas Texas!" and that was that. But he did decide to keep everyone else (except Sam) in the dark until Thanksgiving, when he could announce it to his siblings and grandparents and cousins all at once. He leaves in January, and we are so excited for him, and happy for his choice to go serve the Lord for two years!

The cousins played a bunch of games together after we ate Thanksgiving Dinner, which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite things to see. But we didn't get to sing hymns before everyone had to leave, so that was disappointing. Next year!

Clementine continues to be the sweetest little wee bundle. She's a tiny little thing, and everyone who sees her says, "Oh! Such big eyes!" The better to see you with, my dear!

Sweater dresses are so nicely Fall-ish, don't you think? We managed to find Clementine a matching cream-colored one, and I must say it was quite cute on her, furrowed brow notwithstanding!

Other various cute Clementine snugglers. That yellow dress with smocked pinafore was mine, when I was a baby.

Ziggy made Clementine a "little nest," which she did not quite appreciate…but she ended up falling asleep in it, so it can't have been too bad!

Twins, twins! So many twins. Bunny-doll twins. Little boy twins. Various velvet twins. And of course, yellow romper twins!

In all this Clementine-love, let us not forget the chubbiest Gus-Gus. He was SO pleased when we made donuts and then put him in his high chair (to get him out of the way of the hot oil, and so forth) and just kept feeding him donut after donut!  • He was also really happy when Daisy set Caw up in the doll high chair next to him.  • And he was perhaps happiest of all when we played "Don't Eat Pete" for Family Home Evening and by some stroke of luck, "Pete" was the very last M&M he chose, so he got to eat the whole grid of them!

Gus ADORES Teddy, and Teddy's so nice to him! Teddy carries Gus around on his back constantly. In fact, Gus has grown quite entitled and demands "Back-ride!" like a king calling for his carriage. But don't get too entranced by these angel-faces. ONE of them (we still don't know which) scribbled on this stool in ballpoint pen. It didn't come off with magic eraser or rubbing alcohol or hairspray or any of my other tricks, so there it stands, an everlasting monument to naughty-little-boy-hood. Sigh.

We decorated for Christmas and everyone was too busy doing things to hold Clementine. So we brought her crib into the living room and she happily watched us. Gus climbed up ladders and into boxes, Ziggy and Teddy dropped ornaments, and the girls untangled hooks and strung lights and ran up and down stairs fetching things. We got along quite well without the big boys (they were at work), though we missed them!

We had a nice dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Nielson's house, and to our delight they had a new kitten! She was so cute and fluffy. Do you know who loved her MOST? I think it was Abe! Who would have thought it? He couldn't get enough of her paws and her tiny fluffy face.

Grandpa also showed the boys some awful Sesame Street song or other on his iPad, as is his custom. They are always enthralled by whatever nonsense he finds for them. :)

• Some good meals. Last campfire outside (with coats and blankets and…tutus? It was right after a ballet rehearsal)  • Elephant pancake Marigold made  • German pancakes/cheese puffs that rose up SO HIGH in the oven!

• Malachi's 14th birthday (observed). We celebrated a week early, but he didn't seem to mind.  •Christmas lights in the girls' room. So festive!  • Snuggling on the heater vent (a favorite morning activity)  • Snuggling with Clementine (a favorite anytime activity)  • I asked someone to please bring Clementine to me and the three girls all raced off to get her. To avoid a fight, they all brought her in to me together.  • Daisy and her friend Ivy reading while standing en pointe, as one does.

Feet!!!

And lastly, an assortment of pretty skies by the hill. It was a good month for skies! (And also a little glimpse of Sebastian on a dance date, up on the hill taking pictures with his group. It was fun to spy on them a bit. People never seem to realize that we can SEE them out there! Hee hee.)