Snatches of life

Who are those hooligans running across the road as Sam and I drive off for our date night? And what are they running to? I'll tell you: it's a Lamborghini that was parked by someone's house. We told Teddy and Ziggy we'd seen it and they (and then of course Gus and Clementine too) went running off to see for themselves.

At least Clementine spared us a backwards glance! (Although I think she also tripped and fell and scraped her knee at right about this point, so that's too bad.)

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Another babysitting night activity: doing tiny puzzles together

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Daisy bore her testimony in church, and while we of course don't take photos during Sacrament Meeting, we are lucky that Clementine captured this portrait of the event.

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For school we wrote thank-you notes one day, and Gus chose to write his to the Garbage Truck man. I love the recycling sign he drew from memory on the back of the card. When garbage day came, Gus waited eagerly outside, and then Teddy helped him run out and give the note to the garbage truck driver. I wonder what he thought of it?

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Sunset

Blossoms

Baby

Picnic

Foxes

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I had to drive to Logan to accompany my friend's son for his Violin competition (accompany him on the piano, not accompany him as in "go with him," although I guess I did that too) so I took Goldie with me to help me stay awake on the drive. We stopped for gyros at a Greek place in Salt Lake on the way. Yum.

And then it was the weirdest day! Because it had been such a warm spring (this was mid-April), and so dry and warm all winter, and when we left it was only a little cloudy, but past Salt Lake it suddenly turned into a blizzard! It was actually quite scary to drive in, and I was too afraid to go through Sardine Canyon, so I ended up going a different way past Tremonton. The snow did clear up a little later and I was so glad!

But it left a pretty sparkling world even at home.

(Oh, and Eli won his competition and $1000 [probably thanks to me, of course!!😁]. So that's a happy ending for this story.)

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Gus in a box. Why?

Gus with two bunnies dressed as Giselle

The program where Gus circled every instance of the world "Giselle"

Watching the girls' ballet apparently had quite an effect on Gus, because he talked about Giselle for weeks afterward. He talked about the girls' friend who danced the part, Avery, and he talked Clementine into dressing up like her, and he dressed stuffed animals up like her, and he and Clementine played ballet together frequently. I think he was a little in love with Giselle.

(We have always known that Gus likes girls who are "too pretty." Have I told this here? A couple years ago Ziggy was talking about how he doesn’t like it when girls try to look “too pretty.” [No one knew quite what he meant?] But then Gus started talking to Malachi about how he loved girls in pretty dresses because they were SO nice and pretty, and how they were his favorite. Then he said it was too bad that Ziggy didn’t like girls who tried to be too pretty, because he (Gus) DID like girls to be 'too pretty.' Then he said with interest, “What part of girls do you like, Malachi?” We were all dying of laughter trying to see how Malachi would answer that, but Gus just doubled down, saying “Do you like girls who are too pretty, or who aren't too pretty, Malachi? Which is better, in your opinion?”)

Anyway, Giselle was definitely "too pretty" which means Gus loved her.

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Way back last summer I got tickets on sale for a Utah Symphony concert, but when the day finally came nine months later, Sam was busy with something for work, so I took Goldie with me instead! (Why is Goldie always the Chosen One for these little outings? I don't know. I suppose the other girls had other things going on? Anyway, Goldie is a delightful companion, so I could be forgiven for just choosing her every time!)

We went and got ramen first, which I guess is now our tradition when we go to an event in SLC? I did it with Junie when we went to the "Peter Pan" ballet.

City Creek had these pretty flower displays up all over. So good and spring-y!

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One of Seb's visits home. The little kids love having him here SO much!

Seb and his little zoo

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For Family Home Evening (and as part of our Etiquette Unit) we had each of the little boys take one of his sisters on "a date." The boys helped me pick out some flowers and made little bouquets for each girl, and then they rang the doorbell and picked up their dates. Teddy went with Daisy, Ziggy went with Goldie, Gus went with Junie, and Malachi went with Clementine. We managed somehow to coordinate the driving (Malachi and Daisy drove in two separate cars, and Sam and I dropped off the others) so that everyone could go to a different place—Ziggy and Goldie got gelato at Harmon's, Gus and Junie cobbled together a dinner of snacks at Macey's, and the older two groups went to two hamburger places). Sam and me, left childless, had our own little date [although Seb was in town so we brought him with us too, so not actually childless, I guess]).

The evening was a great success. The little boys were on their best behavior, and very proud of themselves for opening doors and pulling out chairs as they'd been instructed to. The girls (who didn't know about this date beforehand, and were happily surprised by the flowers) thought their brothers were extremely cute—as indeed they were!

The three bouquets, in positions of honor at each girl's place at the dinner table. They lasted for almost three weeks after this and it was fun to see them on the table reminding us of a fun night!

And here's another bouquet Sam brought me for our anniversary a few days later!

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Abe continues to do all kinds of good things in the Accounting Program at BYU. We don't see much of him, but he is busy working hard and having fun! Here is a little glimpse of him…with Cosmo, for some reason. I didn't know Cosmo ever wore suits!

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We had a Relief Society service night making these tiny, tiny hats for stillborn babies to be buried in. (Apparently, when the baby dies, the hospital does not provide the usual baby hat! 😢) We made a few different sizes, all of them impossibly small. One of the ladies shared her story of receiving one of these hats when her baby died. It was heartbreaking but beautiful to think of serving families in this way.