In the name of procrastination

As it is late-ish on a Saturday night and I have already watched a dumb movie this afternoon - my brain says there is no way that I can do any significant writing for end of term papers - I feel compelled to feel productive.  Posting feels productive.  As it is the last remaining vestige of journaling that I actively maintain (I somewhat compile my communications in a bit of an archive just in case someday I am famous and anyone cares), it is time to lay down some mortar that might stick together the past months.  As it is, I have no evidence online that the Button family continued to exist beyond the year 2014.  We are alive.  The apocalypse did not hit Indiana (although there are rumors that our proximity to Adam-on-diaman may give us some advance warning) and force us into oblivion.  Herein lies the proof:

We packed up and moved into our new house on  December 23rd.  It was the fastest  unpack I have ever done because we needed to have a 'home' atmosphere for Christmas.

In this photo it is very apparent that the elements of tradition that was forcing me to roll sushi on New Years was not personally what I wanted to be doing.  But the kids love it.  With the speed of the move, I am super impressed that I was able to keep up with any tradition.  But with the kids, they are old enough now to keep the guilt trip coming: that is the essence of tradition and as we edit our past when older, each one of those consistent years together will paint a picture of family bliss and fun despite Mom being cranky in 2015.

Josh and I made it to 33.  I don't remember what I got for Josh for his birthday and I only remember going to get some hair coloring done on my birthday...wow that doesn't speak well for early thirties!

Through January and February we had plenty 'snow day' cancellation from school which had nothing to do with snow but with a bit of chilled weather.  We loved having the ambiance of a fire to do some homework by on some of the chill days. I do have amazing kids.  Most of the time we are getting along and enjoy the same activities. 

Snow day core strengthening activities.  Viv is the only one of us with a strong core.  Danny is too ticklish to stay long in an airplane and Faith is floppy.  

So impressive - the kids wrote a play about cats and created costumes.  Day well spent.

January 14th, 2015 my baby turned 8.  Wahoo! I am no longer accountable for her sins!  Really, now we are all just accountable for the emotionality of burgeoning independence.

I couldn't have imagined how beautiful this day would be.  Faith chose to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  She has such a mature soul and perceptive intellect that the choice was deeply felt by us all and I felt something more pure than proud, perhaps it is joy.

While Grammie and Grampie were in town for the baptism we went out for the first  roller-skating  experience.  The kids were pretty amazing.  Maybe I am a mean mom, but I wouldn't let them use the walkers on wheels as a crutch for learning.  In my opinion, they learned faster than if they had a walker, but I have no proof that there is any correlation.  Mostly it was their determination. 

Disco baby!

March we took a trip over to Columbus Ohio to visit the Ohio State University.  The trip was a combo of PhD program interviewing, temple visit, and most important for the kids - OSU vs Boise State gymnastics meet!  We reconnected with a cousin of mine who joined us at the meet.  It was really cool to see the women gymnasts do some amazing stuff so close up.  We tell Viv were are investing in her college tuition by paying for gymnastic lessons now - no pressure.

I may have gone a bit overboard with the eggs for color, not that the kids minded. And we have a giant yard to hide them in, we just had to make sure we had an accurate count.  

With Auntie Jill living with us she makes sure we schedule plenty of outings to experience life beyond our home.  We watched the IPFW mens baseball up to the 6th inning and decided we are more excited for the Tin Caps season to open than we thought.

The excursion to the game was worth it for Danny who found a ball in the grass and when he tried to return in to the team, they said he could keep it.  Free game.  Free ball.

I've been working hard as a student his past semester and have had some academic honors bestowed upon me.  Fancy.  I presented a couple of my papers at conferences and symposiums and it accumulated in a scholarship award from the department.  I am grateful to have the recognition not to inflate the ego, but rather to be able to celebrate what I am doing as a contribution.  It is nice to know your work is appreciated. 

Whereas I used this blog in one of my research projects on journal writing, which will probably become a theme as I continue to work with family history writing projects, I hope to keep everyone posted. That is, anyone who is still interested in the ancient form of blogging (came out in 2005 and after a decade in the digital world it is basically dino bones).  I teach blogging to my beginning composition students of one the original internet writing genres and LOVE it!

Not to be forgotten - October and November

Fast recap of what transpired in the family through October and November:As a family, and yes, that very much includes the cats, we watched the General Conference Broadcast at home.  I suppose it is not true to say the full family because Josh could not join us on Saturday as he is always working.  But, Sunday he did.  We kicked up our feet and enjoyed snuggling and working quietly while listening.  The kids are becoming wonderful note takers and probably go more out of the talks than I did (I was a bit snoozy).

Viv turned 7 on October 16th.  We often wonder if her biological age is about a decade behind her attitude.  She absolutely loves fashion and was pleased to receive more frills and sparkles to put together (and yes, she just puts together her favorite without regard to matching which is surprising considering her over-conscious regard for social acceptance).  She certainly is a force to be reckoned with, and is learning how to reckon with herself.  She is a proficient reader and can do anything she sets her mind to, it is the setting the mind part that is still in progress.

 Josh and I celebrated our 9th Anniversary on October 27th.  Having Josh by my side for all these many years is my favorite constant.  I couldn't ask for a more devoted and progressive man.  He got me this lovely hat and a praying mantis broach. Josh was a bit worried about the animalistic connection of how the female mantis bites the head off her mate after they copulate.  I figure that (1) my mouth is not that big and (2) it would have to be some experience for me to loose that kind of self-control.  All in all, Josh doesn't have to worry about me literally biting his head off, and I think that over the years I have become a better wife and 'bite-his-head-off' a little less figuratively.

Everyone in our house is currently obsessed with Harry Potter, so it was a sure bet for Halloween to go the Hogwarts road to costuming.  An etsy friend supplied the scarves and I broke down and bought a new sewing machine to finish out the cloaks (it should not take hours to sew a basic polyester straight stitch and that is when I knew that Grandma's machine and I were going to have to part ways).  With his blonde hair, Danny was Draco Malfoy, Faith naturally was Hermione Granger, and Viv was Nymphadora Tonks.  I resurrected my annual witches cloak and went as Minerva McGonagall circa Tom Riddle's era and Josh was Professor Snape for trick-or-treating.  The kids are still running around the house with their wands practicing various spells and hexes.  Luckily they are Muggle born and their magical skills are not so strong even if Faith is determined she will see her letter from Hogwarts (or the American Wizarding school equivalent) when she turns 11 years old.  

 We are currently finishing out book 4 in the series.  I made the cloaks extra long so they could be used again next year, when it is likely we are just finishing out book 7.

 I was not actually with the family on Halloween - first time ever - so Josh took the kids trick or treating.  I was attending an academic conference at MSU.  I am nearing the end of my Master's degree and scoping out schools for doctoral work.  I traveled with a couple of professors for the first ever Cultural Rhetorics Conference.  The conference was groundbreaking and the sushi place we ate at was amazing!

 Halloween crept up on us rather fast.  We were in the throws of school and buying a new home (we closed on our home two days before Thanksgiving).  I decided that I was tired of inviting guests over having had some ingracious ones in the past, but I was not tired of making the food.  I love cooking a big meal, bummer we don't have many people to share it with.  Ah well, I was emotional drained and the weather change was tickling the fibromyalgia.  We got a turkey roaster many  years ago and it makes AMAZINGLY MOIST bird.  Totally worth the left overs.  We brined it this year, which I loved, the rest thought it a bit too salty in pockets.  

Grandma Ruby's rolls and rainbow Jello are traditional must.

Jill helped out with the side dishes.  The spread was amazing!  The leftovers lingered well into December, which was wonderful since my pension for cooking was waning.    The remedy for not wanting to cook in December, however was the German Aubendbrot tradition.  We fit in three fabulous, company filled Sunday feasts preceding Christmas and filled the fridge with wonderful leftovers.  We invited my good friends from a family history writing course on the 7th, the Gregory and Coudron family on the 14th, and finished strong with the Routsong family on the 21st.  

 Although we do look forward to the food, the tradition of singing carols of the Season and reading from the scriptural accounts of Jesus' birth are what really hold the Holidays together for me. I am so grateful for good parents who established patterns that have helped me, and now my family (and a couple of regular annual guests) look forward to celebrating the birth of our Savior.  Traditions absolutely help me maintain some of the joy of the season for our family despite my own personal health.  It is good to just do what you have always done and be blessed by it every year.  It has also made all my kids wonderful singers who know the words to great anthems of the Messiah's coming!

Autumn comes with the traditional

There are certain events that indicate Fall in Indiana for our family, and it seems they all came and passed this month.  We had Grammie visiting for the welcoming festivities of fall: apple picking.  Our friend's tree that we pillaged for fee last year was on an off year so we had to go to a 'commercial' local apple orchard to pick.  The name of this orchard gave us many laughs: "Tree Technology."  Yep, that's new technology - getting small kids with baskets on a stick to pick apples.Josh, the kids, Grammie and Aunt Jill picked 5 bushels of apples that we processed within that week to have plenty of applesauce and apple pie slices all through the winter.  The kids are always involved with smooshing the apples through the Victorio Strainer or twisting the peeler/corer/slicer, which makes the process move swiftly.

When the apples are on, we also know it is time to honor the man who gave us all this lovely harvest: Johnny Appleseed.  Fort Wayne claims the burial of Johnny.  We have a gravesite, although I am not certain, with many other claimants on to Johnny's burial, if the site is not just a relic containing maybe teeth or other random bones.  Ether way, all the community gathers for the fantastic festival in his park and celebrate the handiwork of many who still create without technology (ha, tree technology orchard).  Each year we heard the kids past the vendors to the settler's area and learn some new skills.  This year's skills were:  clay wheel pottery, woodworking (mostly for Josh who still dreams that he will have a wood shop some day), wood carving, copper smithing, and tinkering. 

This fella gave the kids a bit of a science lesson by carving back the stick and then pulling out the worms that were the cause of the great maple to fall.  Josh admired the lacquering.

Because it was the very end of the day the tinkers let the kids play with all sorts of machines and gave them lots of tin trinkets to play with.  They gave the kids a math lesson as to why you need to know geomotrey. 

 Another fall time favorite - the annual Fort4Fit race.  This year we worked with the kids through the end of the summer to run 25 miles, all building up to the Kids Marathon for Fort4Fit.  The kids had gotten the racing bug when we did the Spartan Race in the spring and were mostly willing to do the training.  We were amazed by how well they did on the actual race night!  With Jill, we had one adult per child to run with the kids during the mile long course.  Viv ran hard with Jill, Faith stayed consistent and long strided with her dad, and I ran with Danny.  I was most impressed with Danny.  Throughout the summer he was the least enthused about continuous running; often stopping with side aches.  However, for the race, Danny kept a steady jog the whole time.  We talked about Captain America, of course, to pass the second half mile and he made it the whole way without walking!  All three were so happy to have their medals!  It is so nice to have this family friendly race so close to our home, it is really too easy to do I would be ashamed if we had not involved the kids in their own race.

Start time was 7:30am this year instead of 8am.

The next morning I woke up and walked up to the race start for the 10K race.  Some friends joined me for the start.  To my happy surprise, Jill rode her bike up and became my support through the whole race.  I certainly wasn't in my favored shape for the race, but I made some goals and kept them, only missing my goal finish by one minute (should have followed Jill's advice and had faster turnover the last half mile rather than trying to lengthen my stride, lesson learned).

Josh and the kids made it up for the finish so they could steal my post-race snacks and then go to the library.  It is a fun race because it ends in the Parkview baseball stadium and they have the racers on the jumbo-tron and announce their names so the family can be more participatory in the end.

A new fall tradition for us, thanks to Jill, will be going to a college football game.  We are still learning to enjoy the event, so it was super nice to head over to a small university in town, St. Francis, and watch our good friend and old babysitter Jason "Big Guy" Gardner play as defensive center.  Danny was intent not he game.  Faith brought a book, which suits her personality after watching some of the game she was happy to read.  Viv spent most of her time watching the cheerleaders evidently to figure outs why they had blue and black pom-poms (which she finally figured out about the 3rd quarter and announced to the rest of of that it was to match the team colors on the football uniforms).  It was a very good thing to broaden the horizons of the kids to some of the best parts of fall sporting events.  Jill and I also took them to watch IPFW men and women's soccer.

A little family gush...

In my opinion, my kids are THE BEST!  This may be the first time I mention it.
I have really grown to love my little people more and more. I do have to put it in perspective - they are now all able to fully communicate, have mastery of most of their emotions, and are fairly independent.  In fact, a while back Faith was voicing a pretty convincing argument for children to be treated as adults by age 6 (according to some logic she had internalized from the book "Bud, not Buddy" and her own understanding of the world).  By age 6, argues Faith, kids are not expected to be 'cute' like babies anymore but they don't get all the independence of an adult.  We reasoned that we could make some more opportunities in the family for responsibility and independence because the real mark of an 'adult' is someone who is responsible for their independence.  And the kids have taken to it beautifully!  I love that we all respect and love each other and can have such conversations.

In other cool and amazing things that they do: they entertain themselves simply and happily.  Most of the time they really love playing with each other too!  These are the blocks that we made for Faith when she was not quite two years old, and they still love them!

Even though sometimes I bunch them all together, they are all so unique and amazing.  They have some innate special gifts such as Viv's amazing monkey skills:

All of them are patient and happy to be trucked around to the others' lessons.  Faith and Danny are here working together on a sticker matching Star Wars book while Viv has gymnastics.  

While Faith is in tap and Viv is in gymnastics, Danny and I have a full hour together, he has recently preferred to build with cards after having mastered Slap Jack, Russian Ratscrew, and Go Fish.  His maze building is awesome!

Although sometimes clumsy walking around the house, Faith is a natural dancer.  Josh took her to her class field trip and commented when they got home "I know she is excited about something when she pirouettes!"  Her teachers likewise comment how she will take impromptu dance breaks between her work if she is enjoying it.  

Danny is our baseball enthusiast.  He is thrilled to be going to T-ball every week and loves sitting and watching any baseball game we go to (which sometimes is as exciting as watching golf).  Josh thinks his heart rate is slower than most human beings because when he is in you lap, you automatically feel relaxed.  I say he is my namaste. 

 Every night the day ends with them willingly getting through their nighttime routine and sitting quietly on their bed in different stages of reading.  Faith zooms through reading.  Viv is sounding out the words out loud and Danny will work through the words with me.  They are currently working through the graphic storytelling of all the Standard Works.  And the get it!  The love telling me about the stories in the scriptures.
I love seeing the world through their eyes!