Joke-the-day

Sometime, in the mists of the past, one of our boys did a thing where he would get up on our little art table and yell "Joke of the Day!" and then tell a joke. (Some of the kids think it started with Seb? But he claims it was Abe.) We only know this secondhand, since it was a silly thing they would do on our date nights while we were gone. Anyway, in that strange alchemic transmission between siblings, this private joke has carried on all the way down to Clementine, and she sometimes stands up in her high chair and yells "Doke-da-day!" in a triumphant voice. Sam and I are constantly astounded at how much our children are influenced by things and people that…aren't us. Astounded and a bit terrified. Heaven help us all!

Here is a sampling of some of the other baffling and funny things that happened in these parts recently:

• There was a marriage proposal on the hill by our house! I was sitting with Sam in his office and saw these people milling around, spreading out blankets and setting up vases and scattering rose petals hither and yon. "Someone's going to propose," I said, and proceeded to stop what I was doing and watch them for the next 30 minutes. After a while the helpers skedaddled and then I waited with great anticipation for the happy couple.

Pretty soon we saw a photographer skulking around the side of the hill, and we knew they must be getting close, because after all what's a proposal these days without a dedicated photographer and videographer and maybe a few drones getting shots from above?

It was pretty cute. The boy took the girl's hand. She covered her mouth in shock. You could tell exactly what was going on without hearing a thing.

Awww! He asked her! And she said yes! So sweet. This isn't the first marriage proposal on this hill, by the way, and I'm sure it won't be the last. It's a great spot! Unless you don't want people watching you from their windows. Hee hee. I ought to encourage all my daughters' boyfriends to propose there! 

• The boys playing church again. Here they are being the bishopric. They gave some pretty good talks!

• Gus and Zig love helping put away the chairs after church, now that we're the last ward in the building. It is the cutest. My favorite part is how all the men and older boys help them and humor them and let them bumble around getting in the way. Good men—how I love them!! And the church that helps form them!!

Another day of putting chairs away. Wearing an "ear" hat from Sunbeams, this time. ("He who has ears to hear, let him hear!")

• Speaking of church, we had Stake Conference recently, and it would have been a great meeting, but they had the closed captioning on, and it just…was a bit distracting. It is rather hard to catch the spirit of a talk when you are reading words like this beneath it. The choir songs were particularly bad! Sam and I were gasping with held-in laughter, trying to maintain reverence for the sake of the children! 

Then we went to a fireside and Sam had his sketchbook as he always does, and Malachi took it and drew a self-portrait. (A pretty accurate one, I must say. He didn't particularly want to come to this fireside, as you can see.) Then Sam drew himself and then Daisy and I drew ourselves. I was thinking about cookies. Because Marigold was at home making some.

• The hill, looking pretty and pristine after one of the many, many snowfalls. Usually it gets footprints on it so quickly, I was enjoying how clean and white it looked here!

• We went on a quick overnighter to St. George to take Sebastian and Malachi to a track meet, and Daisy and her sisters valiantly held down the fort at home. We got Costco pizza for their dinner and they sent us periodic pictoral updates, including these oh-so-genuine smiles, from Sam's iPad we'd left home with them.

We stayed in a tiny, tiny house in St. George. Just a trailer, really. But it was very cute inside! Clementine slept in a port-a-crib in the shower and was not pleased about it. But she did go to sleep…eventually.

The next morning there was a rainbow on the way to the meet!

It rained off and on, but it was quite nice for all the boys' races.

We had fun watching.

We drove up to Snow Canyon between races and saw the beautiful clouds rolling between the canyon walls. I've never seen weather like that in Snow Canyon before!

The clouds moved so fast! It was mesmerizing to watch.

This guy was there with his old-timey camera. I liked watching him (he even ducked under a cloth to get the picture!).

Malachi contemplates the vagaries and transience of life

We took Clementine to the children's museum while we waited for a rain delay in the afternoon.

She, with great effort, got both these basketballs out of the little basketball stand, and proceeded to proudly carry both of them around everywhere. She would not give them up for anything, even though they made literally everything she wanted to do more difficult.

She finally replaced them with two fake marshmallows on sticks instead, which I am not sure was an improvement.

There were blossoms in St. George! Almost like it was Spring or something! Even though we all know no such thing exists.

Ky ran a great race, in spite of rain delay and cold wind

And Seb's 4x800 relay took first place! Just like last year!

Yay for them!

• Junie sits in the strangest positions while reading or doing schoolwork. I do not know where this pretzel-person came from. You can see Daisy is a bit leery of her as well.

• I love this picture of Seb taking a picture of Clementine. Whenever she does something cute, which is often, he whips out his camera. It's the sweetest.

The little boys were playing "barber" ("Haircut mans," to be precise) and talked Junie into being their victim…er…client. She looked quite lovely afterwards!

We planned a last-minute (really, so last-minute) little "Bookfest" to end the school unit we've been doing on Books, Authors, Printing, and Bookmaking, and invited some homeschool friends to join us. We just asked everyone to come and tell about a favorite book. I was thrilled to find I'd saved the banner I made for our last bookfest (oh, only nine years ago). What foresight! We had thought then we might make it an annual affair. See you again in nine more years, I guess!

We made pineapple muffins and fruit skewers and vegetable skewers for refreshments.

And Daisy made these adorable egg salad sandwiches shaped like books (on a little shelf!)

We were happy so many friends came! It was so fun to hear about everyone's favorite books!

• A pretty, icy, morning

• The girls desperately trying to trick themselves into thinking it was warm enough for a picnic. It was about 40 degrees outside. Positively balmy by this Spring's standards.

More Picnickers

• Boys watching the garbage truck

• The girls take turns getting Clementine ready for church on Sunday. Goldie always tries to have the two of them match!

So Daisy decided she'd match Ziggy.

And Gus was just cute!

• Here is a picture of the pile of pita bread we made for dinner (with hummus and feta dip and a really good roasted tomato dip with burrata cheese on top) one night and which was devoured so quickly I might be a little depressed by it if I let myself think about it too long. I do like big piles of food. And we have them! But they don't last. They never last.

• My niece got married! We're so happy for her. She is Abe's age and went on the senior-year trip to Philadelphia with Abe and my mom and my brother and me. She's such a smart, sweet, fun girl; my kids just love her, and Josh too.

While we were in Provo for the wedding we took a quick peek at the Harris Fine Arts Center, my old stomping grounds (and Sam's more recent stomping grounds) at BYU. Eeek! The demolition is proceeding apace. I'll miss the HFAC! Feels so weird to see it just disappearing!

The girls got all dressed up in Katy's wedding colors, pinks and peaches, for the reception.

Some of my kids with my brother Philip. He is so nice to them, and they absolutely love him. What good brothers I have!

Kenneth and Sheila and Josh and Katy (my mom took this, apparently while everyone was looking at someone else for a different picture😄)

Sam and happy Gus

Clementine has learned to give kisses, and will grab both sides of your face like this to do it. Cutest thing ever! Especially when she's doing it to squishy Gus!

We also got to go to the Provo Temple (where we got married) with my mom and all my brothers while everyone was in town for the wedding. They're remodeling the Provo Temple and I'm so sad about it. It's going to look pretty, I'm sure, but just generic and like ten other temples when it's done. I love it just how it is now! Anyway, I'm glad we got to go one last (?) time.

Cousins playing games after the temple

• What's Malachi up to here? No good, clearly.

• And what's he up to here? His first day of work at Nielsen's Frozen Custard (the misspelled family business? ha ha. Abe and Seb did work there too!). Ziggy was so excited when he saw Ky come in the room all dressed for work, he ran upstairs and changed into his own clothes that matched Ky's!

• Ziggy said, "Mommy, come see what I made!" He was so proud and pleased that I managed NOT to say "Oh no! Put all that stuff away right now!"…for a few minutes, anyway.

• Clementine with Nutmeg

• Nutmeg in a hat, for some unknown reason

• Playing the piano

• Junie did pigtails in Clementine's hair! It's growing fast now. But the pigtails are still pretty scrawny.

• And I will leave you with this haunting picture of Clementine being a chicken girl. Grandma Nielson stuffed these chickens into her dress and tights, and Clementine is very serious about it. Deadly serious. It's hardly joke-the-day, we can say that for sure! But other than that all we can do is wonder why. 

Why?

Why?