January kick-off: family and goodbyes, wilderness survival at a young age

 Once again, I'm trying to be more consistent. (Does anyone else here that inner voice at the start of each new year?)  Let's see how much I can do in my self-allotted seven minutes, lol!

Kiddos adventuring on the way to Oma's and Opa's house, lovingly called, "Opama."

Dad and Zuli motorcycle time...

Saying goodbye after so many chill and fun holiday moments was particularly hard this year.

Oma art time...

Zsa-man and Peanut decided to sleep in his tent last night at below 30 degrees. Thank goodness they have a daddy who knows how to do winter camping! I layered Peanut up with several layers, Zsa-man cleared out a flat area, and they're off! It'll be Zuli's turn tomorrow night.

Fun with Words and Washing and W-singing! (Warbling!)

 Liesl uses great words: “There is just a smakeral of pee on my panties!”

Penelope loves to be clean, apparently. She regularly smears hand soap onto her hair (what little she hasn’t cut off) and leaves it there.  Fun!

Yesterday we hosted a Christmas Carol fun night! We did "name that tune" to involve everyone and even had a "championship" bracket set up! Mark won, with Liesl taking a solid second place. We had Brelder over for dinner and then Mark and the missionaries joined us for the musical round. We all had naps and awoke around 5, whipped together a delicious butter chicken, rice and veggies dinner with white chocolate-covered pretzels and fresh cinnamon rolls for dessert. We were a great team, even getting the house a little cleaned in the process! I just love my family.

Testimonies and God's Hammer from on High

I love it when my family members remember things from those around us and share them.  Here are a few gems-- 

From Piper:

Occasionally, one of the little kids comes upstairs to join me for online seminary (it starts at 6:30 a.m.). Well, this morning it was Xai. He snuggled up by me and made a lot of suggestions like: "You should turn off your camera," or "You should rename yourself 'I am your best friend!'" Then I had to ask him to be a little quieter because I was turning on my mic and he conceded and scooted closer to me. After I finished and turned off my mic, he bellowed out "I WOULD LIKE TO BEAR MY TESTIMONY..." He is such a cute guy:D

From Quinn: On Saturday I was working outside and Liesl came up to me to tell me she found a dead spider. She wanted me to look at it and I told her in a fearful voice that the wind would blow the spider on me. To which she said without hesitation in her little Liesl voice, "The wind will blow it up and up and God will SMASH it with a hammer." 

Rain and Holidays

 It rained yesterday. Beautiful, down-pouring awesomeness like I used to crave in Utah.  Growing up in a desert has made the sound of the storm magical.

Apparently, I am not the only one in my family who finds it so.  We had just finished up a grueling five and a half hours of choir and acting rehearsal and I had called it good for the evening.  We did a quick straighten-up while I put the finishing touches on dinner, we ate and then I declared the evening free.  

"Maybe we could watch a movie or something," I mentioned casually, to the delight of the kids.  

During dinner, the rain started coming down even harder, beckoning.  The older kids asked if the little ones needed a bath tonight.

"If so, can we do it outside in the rain? You know, just leave their clothes on but let the rain clean them off?" they queried.

Brilliant.

So that is what we did on our evening off...let the rain pour down.

Piper and Lily both commented yesterday about how it is like everything all of a sudden turned green.  The birds are out in choruses and everything feels alive. The sound of the distant freeway have receded even further, masked by the unfurling of all the leaves in our little woods.

I love to listen to the birds outside my window, particularly this morning when I lay there snuggling with my baby, trying to get her back to sleep in my favorite way possible...nestled up against my body. There is something equally magical about snuggling a sleeping baby so the combination of bird song, rain, and sleeping baby has really set a wonderful tone for my day :D.

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Lily has started a new tradition of reading off all the holidays for the day.  This week we have celebrated:

-"Minimize Food Waste Day"--leftovers for dinner!

-"Blueberry Pie Day"--particularly delicious.

-"National Kids and Pets Day"--every day, right??

-"National Pretzel Day"--another yummy one with homemade pretzels

-"National Tell a Story Day"

-"National Prime Rib Day"--sadly, missed celebrating this one

-"National Devil Dog Day"--won't mention how applicable this one was

-"National Great Poetry Reading Day"--every day!

-"National Zipper Day"--or as Liesl puts it, "beezer" ("Mommy, will you do my beezer?"

It's been a riot!  Maia was sad that we didn't celebrate "National Hug a Plumber Day" last Sunday until she realized that Quinn had done a lot of plumbing work, so we felt that qualified him.  Oh, and we forgot to get out the shrimp last night for "National Shrimp Scampi" day because we got so caught up in the rain and beauty of the evening.  I am great celebrating that one a day late ;). 

Patience to count to one

 The Goob stopped by for a minute and I showed him some cool things I had just read and invited him to read.  Zuli came up to him and said, "Drew!  Come dance with me!"  Drew chuckled and said, "Just a minute, okay? I am going to read this and then I will dance with you."

"Okay, I will wait for you!" little Zuli exclaimed happily.

"I love how patient she can be," I remarked.

"I will count to one!" Zuli followed up.

Ummmmm.....retracting previous comment about patience.

"How about you count to one thirty times?" the Goob practically suggested.

"Okay!" 

Zuli started counting.