Kyler and Jeanette: August 2020

30 August 2020

A Scarlett Comes To Town

Back in July, my niece Scarlett came to visit us. For her birthday, her present was to fly to Edmonton (from Calgary) by herself and then spend a week hanging out with my kiddos.

We had a blast.

The first thing we did was celebrate her birthday,

obviously.

We went to a couple of different parks,

With statues to climb,

Art to enjoy,

and slides to go down, including the park closest to our house. When they weren't playing the swings,

Scarlett was leading everyone in a role playing game about space explorers.

We also headed to Elk Island National Park,

and yes, we saw bison. Many, many bison, including one in the middle of the road.

It later came over by Scarlett's window.

We also saw many leeches, big and small, and I was once again reminded why I am hesitant to do big outings without Kyler around. Too many whiny children all at once. At least Scarlett didn't add to the whininess...

We played outside and got wet. I figure it's fair that Craig is getting Scarlett wet, because she had the hose earlier and was spraying it around a bit.

All is fair in love, war, and backyard sprinklers.

The kiddos also just generally abused Scarlett and enjoyed having a big sister.

She mostly enjoyed it, and when it got too much she went downstairs to her bedroom and read.

It was really fun having her around. Scarlett got to be the "big kid" for a while, which as the third of four kids, she rarely gets to be.

She even got to join our friends and be a grown up for game night, which Scarlett loved.

When the other kids were in bed, we watched Hamilton (she loved it but fell asleep)

and Avatar: The Last Airbender. We also had a movie night with some friends from church, watching Princess Bride.

While I know it wasn't actually like having a teenager of my own, it was fun to borrow one for a week. She's welcome here any time! Especially if she'll babysit. :)

26 August 2020

Calista Retrospective: Year 9

Calista is nine, so we are going to have a post all about her past year.

As usual, Calista spent the past year learning and growing. It's just crazy how much kids do that, even when sometimes you want them to stay little.

Most of the learning is good, though. Like, Calista learned to swim without a life jacket, not that she's had much opportunity to use that skill.

Maybe we'll have to head to the pool now that they're actually open again.

This year, Calista started piano lessons.

She learned a lot and we may start preparing to take the Royal Conservatories exams. She has enjoyed composing her own songs for a while now, but as her musical knowledge increases, they get more complex.

Sometimes we even make her try to transcribe them out. In June, Calista performed in her school's virtual talent show.

She did so great!

Calista has been learning to cook, including helping me make food and making a few meals mostly by herself.

Her arms aren't long enough to get things in and out of the oven, though, so Calista can't do things all on her own yet!

Partially because she's helping make them more, Calista is more willing to try new foods, sometimes even liking them!

Our spring semester course, Country of the Week, helped with this, too, as she was exposed to new and different foods.

Calista loves to read and continues to get better at it. I finally convinced her to read Harry Potter by herself and she loved it.

She has continued to go through them, pausing a bit at the beginning of the fourth book because its size intimidated her - but she persevered! As of right now, the third book, Prisoner of Azkaban, is her favorite. We'll see if that continues as she goes through the whole series.

Calista has been busy with sports, although not as much as we originally planned, since soccer was cancelled this year. Still, she did gymnastics and is hoping to earn her bronze badge soon. Calista also did curling, and was very pleased with herself being able to get a rock the the house.

Doesn't hurt that Kyler promised her a frosty if she did it.

As a family, we have done lots of camping in the last year.

Mostly Calista likes it, but sometimes she gets freaked out by bugs a little too much and gets annoying.

After getting baptized last year, Calista made a goal to earn her Faith in God award. The only catch is she had to finish it in 5 months, because the program was changing in January. After a lot of hard work, she succeeded and was quite proud of herself.

In January, Calista bore her testimony in sacrament meeting for the first time. This was a goal of hers since she got baptized, but she was too scared.

She kind of froze, staring at all those eyes staring at her, but said she believed the Book of Mormon can help us have faith.

And, obviously, she finished up Grade 3 - online, like everyone else in our corona virus year.

She was a trooper, working hard and turning in all her assignments.

With only whining and meltdowns on some days. Hey, it wasn't every day, so I'm counting that as a win.

Calista vacillates between wanting, even begging, her brothers to sleep in her room with her,

and yelling at them to get out and leave her alone. Life's hard, and she doesn't even have a lock on her bedroom door.

She really does usually love her brothers, but I mean...

...they can be annoying some times.

Sometimes Calista is super helpful. Many times, though, she whines and complains about cleaning up the playroom or her room.

(Also, she hates when you try to take a grumpy picture of her). When she finally does "clean," Calista discovered you can hide things under the bed. Also then she also discovered that Mom and Dad know this trick and it just means more work later.

Calista loves colors.