Dominoes for the Whole Family

I remember reading something many years ago about how you should think about prices in terms of the price per use.  Some toys might look inexpensive, but if you never use them, the cost per use is still pretty pricey.

In contrast, these dominoes?  Basically free at this point.  They get used ALL the time, and at this point they get used by all three kids.

Dominoes can be simple structures.

Or elaborate structures

Or you can even make up your own cool building/knockdown hybrid games.

Sunshine in my Soul

I'm a morning person both by nature and by necessity.  My body and brain kind of shut down by 10 PM every night, and then the only way I can get any quiet time to myself to work, read scriptures, and exercise is to wake up around 5 AM.

The major perk of waking up early is that every now and then the sunrises are amazing.  The whole house starts to glow pink and gold and then I run outside and get treated to the most beautiful of views.

There's nothing quite as beautiful or peaceful as a glowing sunrise over the snowy mountains.

To Grandmother's House We Go

My parents are currently in the process of moving about five minutes away from us.  We got the chance to see their new house!  

Forgive the sideways picture.  I was trying to take it from a semi-moving vehicle. Isn't it such a cute house?

The kids, as you may know, are obsessed with taking pictures in closets.  They were also completely in love with Grandma and Grandpa's new unfinished basement, closets, and storage rooms.  They made for the best possible hide and seek rooms.  

My parents won't be here for real for a few months until the basement gets finished and they finish packing everything in California, but Molly is already planning all the sleepovers she wants to have at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Miles is excited for game nights, and Elliott has told me about how all of Grandma's fun toys will be here soon approximately 10,000 times. Mostly they can't wait for Grandma and Grandpa!

An Early Christmas Countdown

At the end of October, I saw a link for a jam advent calendar on a website I read.  Gerrit and I both thought it looked like fun, so I bought it and planned to save it for December.

Then early November came and it turned out that we needed something to look forward to, so now we're doing a jam every other day and spreading it out to a 2-month advent :)

Isn't the calendar the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Except for possibly these adorable miniature jams?

Election Pangrams

 This is a picture of the Spelling Bee puzzle.   Your goal is to come up with the pangram that uses all of these letters and then as many other words as you can that use the center letter.  You can use letters more than once.

Miles and I thought it was funny for election season that there were two pangrams for this puzzles: archrival AND chivalric

Halloween 2020

 Halloween looked a little different this year without a costume parade or all of the different preschool events, but we still did a few fun things!

The Saturday before Halloween, we went to a drive-through Halloween event.  It wasn't the most fun ever but we did get some good candy!

They had some cute booths with young adults all dressed up in costumes.  I really liked the Onward one.

Miles dressed as an Egyptian.  The 6th grade here does that every year.  He made his own menet (the collar) and picked out fabric for the headscarf.  I made a tunic and belt when I realized that Molly and Elliott would be able to use them too.

Elliott wanted to be an Egyptian too.

Molly really wanted to be a black cat.  She wore a black hoodie, skirt, and leggings, and then we bought a set with ears, a tail, and handwarmers from Target. I made everyone new masks recently but made sure her reading kitty cat mask was ready for school!

Elliott wanted to be a UFO, because why wouldn't you want to be a spacecraft?  I added antennae and ears to his hoodie, and Gerrit crafted this cute cardboard UFO for him.

Happy Halloween from the Larsens!

The ghost on the mountain was the cutest!

October Randoms

 Elliott gets the Kiwi Crate (for older kids) now because I realized he was aging out of interest on several of the boxes for younger kids.  He's been completely obsessed with this marble timer and can watch it go forever.

The kids came up with an elaborate song and dance routine that devolved into pretty intense craziness.  That's not really all that far off my daily life, just this time with costumes.

We had a fun singing time where the kids had to pick a pumpkin from my pumpkin patch that had the different songs on them, and then pick a "trick" way to sing it.  We all got candy at the end.

No big deal, just my kids having a hard time listening to our church broadcast and building a giant wall instead.

I needed Gerrit to come take a picture of me and he decided to wear his sweatshirt as pants.  It ended badly and ripped his sweatshirt.

Pirate Elliott loved playing with stencils!

There's a really good chance you'll find Elliott walking around with a K-nex creation.

You can't go wrong with peanut butter cookies!

Super Train

 Why would you make a normal train track when you could make it go under your mom's bed, across the landing, and all the way through your sister's room to the window?

Elliott even made a city for them to go through at the end.

Miles at 11.5

 Miles is eleven and a half!  I'm not sure how that's possible but here we are :)  Here's a little bit about what he's like right now:

*Miles is endlessly creative.  He writes funny stories.  He makes up Book of Mormon escape rooms for Elliott.  He thinks up funny jokes.  His mind is always thinking of word games.

*He's started taking piano lessons again.  We were all a little nervous about him starting up after the long break but he's been doing very well!

*Miles loves his Squishables.  He has his sushi, his little bee, a crocheted Grubby my mom made him, and his earlier childhood animals and he will use them to make up funny stories for Elliott.

*He is a food enthusiast.  I know you're probably thinking that ALL pre-teen boys are food enthusiasts, but Miles loves trying new foods and is also becoming an outstanding cook. He's made cookies 100% on his own several times and has made dinner about 80% on his own several times!

*Miles is a big reader.  He loves books of all sorts, from non-fiction to realistic fiction to adventures to humor.  There are many nights where Gerrit and I have to send him to bed because he's snuck out of his room to read on the landing.

*He still loves Roblox, both creating his own levels and playing with his friend Oliver.

*Miles is a good friend.  Covid and pre-teen drama have made some of that more difficult this year, but he is incredibly loyal and incredibly kind.

*He watches CNN10 every day in his class and loves to tell me the latest science news.  It's even made  him sort of interested in politics!  His other favorite thing in class is that his teacher does all kinds of brainteasers as breaks every day and he adores those.  

*Miles graduated from speech therapy!  He's worked so hard for this past year to master his "r" sounds and he's done a great job with it.  His certificate of success is hanging proudly in his room and that candy was gone before the end of the school day :)

Fall Break, Part Three: Why Not Keep Going to the Park?

 For the last day of fall break, we headed to one last playground.  There's a brand-new all-abilities playground in Spanish Fork.  It's too far away for a regular visit but not a problem with no school.

This park is enormous!  There's so much equipment and it's very spread out.

A Neos set is always a welcome addition to any playground.

And so is a zipline!

They had a hill full of shaded slides!  It's nice to not have the metal getting too hot in the sun.

Our favorite thing was this tunnel.  It's full of fake rocks and fossils and just really fun.

This slide is nice and fast!

We didn't stay as long as I thought we would.  Elliott was a little bit worn out of playgrounds and it wasn't as much of a "big kid" park.  That left plenty of time for Molly to meet up with her friends Ella and Norah.  Doesn't that look like a perfect fall afternoon?