Alphabet Catch-up

For the sake of my poor sieve-like memory, and since I haven't updated this for a year, I feel duty-bound to give an Alphabet Weekend update. I wish to reiterate that there is NOT anything particularly clever about any of these ideas (frequently we were just choosing the easiest option at the last minute) but the kids DO love it so! We take weeks off at a time when we need to. It's the lowest-pressure situation possible while still making an attempt at Planned Family Togetherness! But we did at last finish the alphabet (it took us just about a year, which gives you an idea of how many weekends off there were).

J was for Juice (picnic with apple juice from the Red Barn in Santaquin)

K was for Korean food. The restaurant we went to must not have been that memorable, since I don't know what it was and we haven't been back.

L was for Little eagles. (Yeah…it's a stretch.) We went on a field trip with Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to see nesting baby eagles. Awesome.

M was for Mother-Son date. (The daddy and daughters did something together too.) The boys and I (and their cousin who was staying with us) went to the Air Show up at Hill Air Force Base and then had pizza at Pioneer Park and walked around the Apple Store at City Creek (their favorite place). Such a great day.

N was for Nocturnal. We woke the kids up at 2 a.m. and went for breakfast at Denny's. The SOLE charm of this activity is its appeal to the children. The food was horrible (Next time we'll find an IHOP…I think they're slightly better…) and Sam and I were SO tired…but it's such a great memory! :) The kids talk about it all the time.

O was for O-shaped. We had donuts for breakfast, and bagel sandwiches for dinner, with an O-shaped bundt cake (Sebby Cake) for dessert.

P was for family Pictures. My mom had a friend that offered to take them for us. This was an activity mostly for MY sake, since it's not anyone ELSE's idea of a great time…

Q was for oQuirrh Lake. We went canoeing and it was fun.

R was for Rah-rah, rah-rah-rah (goooo Cougars). We watched the BYU football game and ate "R" foods. Homemade Ricotta, Rolls, Root beer, etc.

S was for Santaquin. Red Barn again. We always go in October. For the apple cider donuts!!!

T was for Track. We went to the BYU track and ran and played in the bleachers. We tried to find a high school track closer by, but they were all closed and locked. How rude.

U was for Unassembled. We bought a bunch of components from Cafe Rio (sides of meat, dressing, lettuce, tortillas etc.) and made our own burritos and tacos and salads. YUM. We liked this so much we did it again on Christmas Eve.

V was for Versus. We compared chicken sandwiches, fries, and frozen custard from different places. We just bought a couple things from each place and then brought them home and cut them up, and everyone tried them. I think the chicken sandwich and the fries from Astro Burger won (but there may have been disagreement on the fries. JCW's was in the running too, I think.) The frozen custard winner was Nielsen's, hands down.

W was for Whale of a Tale. Everyone had to tell an embellished story from his or her past. We guessed which parts were true.

X was for Xissors (what?). We cut out snowflakes and had hot chocolate.

Y was for Yoyo. Sam got yo-yos for everyone and taught them how to use them. Some had more success than others at this. (I'm terrible at yo-yo-ing!)

Z was for Zushi (??). We like sushi. Yum. By the way, I used to think every time anyone mentioned eating sushi they were trying to brag or be pretentious. It wasn't normal enough to me that I thought people just ATE it like any other food. But after we learned about sushi during our Japan Unit, and tried making our own, it finally sort of clicked in for me, what it was all about, and I started liking it (and the kids did too). And now it really is just one of those many foods we like. So…let that be a lesson to me, I guess?


And now we've started the alphabet over, so I might as well get us up to date:

A was for Argentinian food. I keep hoping one of these new food places we try will be just amazing. But failing that, "interesting" is good too. Many of these activities revolve around food, don't they? It shows our good taste.

B was for Birthday. Sam planned a "birthday party" even though it was no one's actual birthday. We had cake and a family present (a kite).

C was for Cute. Went to the "Puppy Barn" and saw baby bunnies and chicks at Thanksgiving Point. And then made teeny-tiny cute little cookies. (Guess who planned this one? Hee hee)

D was for Drawing. We played that picture-sentence game (my favorite game) for Family Home Evening.

E was for Each and Every. We got donuts, and each person got to pick out his or her OWN. (This is very unusual.) And we asked questions about everyone's favorite things.

F was for Framed Faces. We all had to draw or make some sort of portrait of someone else in the family. It was hilarious.

G was for Garden party. Daybeak has one of these things every year; there's a bouncy house and so forth. Fun.

H was for Hanabi (a sushi place we love). It was great. And practically deserted. Please don't go out of business, Hanabi!

I was for Indoor S'mores (since we didn't get out for our traditional campfire that weekend). We made s'mores bars, which are some of our favorites.

So! There we are. To be continued…maybe…a year from now! :)

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E, F, G, H, I

I've been wanting and wanting to write about our trip to London and Berlin, but it's been taking me a long time to sort through and edit all the pictures we took! Besides which I feel a sort of moral obligation to get all these drafts of other various unfinished posts out of the way first. Anyway, these alphabet weekends are all combined into one post because none of them were very elaborate! Which, of course, is the key to us doing them at all, when things get busy.

E was for Empanadas. We went to a place that got good reviews on Yelp and did something I've always wanted to do: ordered one of everything on the menu! It's kind of a small place and when all nine of us trooped in there I was worried we'd be overwhelming. But besides having to sit at three different tables, it was fine. The owner was super nice (he has 10 kids himself, he said!) and we loved everything we tried. I can't even remember which kinds we liked best, so if we go again I'm afraid we'll just have to order everything again! :)

F was for Frites. We've liked this place in Salt Lake for years now but other Saturday events brought us to Provo, so we went to the new location on Center Street. We bought a huge cone-full of fries and shared it. And then another one and shared it too (we should have known one wouldn't be enough). And we tried six different sauces, of course.

G was for Goldie. Everyone was supposed to do something fun with Goldie sometime during the day. It was kind of a busy day and this meant we could fit our activities in between other duties. I let Goldie help me make muffins ("schloclate muffins") at breakfast time.
Abe let Goldie help him make a smoothie.
Sebby took her on a walk.
Ky let her play a game with him in his bed.
Daisy and Junie took her to a playground.
Daddy got her up after bedtime to have ice cream with him.
Needless to say, everyone loved this.

H was for Ha ha ha. We all had to come up with something funny ("One very amusing thing, two somewhat amusing things, or three not very amusing at all." Just kidding. There was no numeric requirement.) and have it ready for Sunday. On Sunday we went on a picnic and told each other all our funny things. It was great. Sam read a bunch of jokes. I read selections from our books of funny things the kids said when they were little. Abe made some funny documents—applications for things, and patents for new inventions, and so forth. He is so clever. I thought I got a picture but I can't find it! Sebby drew a comic strip. Malachi told a funny story. Daisy drew some funny pictures and Junie and Marigold laughed heartily at everything everyone else did! :)


I was for Indian Food. We tried a new Indian restaurant for lunch and it was yummy. Our favorite place is still Bombay House, but we liked this new one too, and it's always good to try something different.

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D is for Date

Our alphabet letter "D" was a brilliant idea, I must say. I don't know how I thought of it; it just came to me. I assigned each of the boys to take one of their sisters on a Date. Because our family has boys and girls divided so evenly, it worked out nicely, but I feel like you could make this work with a different set of siblings if you included mom and dad or paired the kids up differently.

Each brother had to plan his own date, taking into account what his sister would like best. Sam or I would drive them, but the rest was up to them. I said they couldn't all do the same thing (since I wanted each to be able to give one sister his undivided attention) and they had to stay fairly close by since we were going to have to fit all three dates into one Saturday. And I gave them each $6 to spend.

And it all turned out so awesome! I loved it so much. It was great for the girls to feel so focused-on and loved and pampered by their brothers, and it was great for the boys to feel so grown-up and responsible and adored by their sisters! After their dates were over the children all kept saying how fun it was and asking if we could please please do this again. Everyone was excited about the idea of the different things they would do if they were with a different sibling, so I think we'll do it again for sure, maybe with a higher or lower budget just for variety. $6 to spend and a time limit of 2 hours was just right for a sweet little brother–sister bonding time, though.

Sebastian took Marigold out to get pastries for breakfast, and then to Target to buy stickers (they had $1 left after their pastries) and then to a playground. It was THE SWEETEST how he kept asking her, "Is this fun, Goldie? Do you like this?" And he kept telling me to take pictures of them. "Did you get one of us on the swings? Here, take one of me holding Goldie." And needless to say, Goldie was in heaven. She chattered to Sebby like a little magpie. Oh, it was sweet. Afterwards Sebby said, "If we do this again, I want to take Goldie again." Who wouldn't?

For his date, Abraham took Daisy to the Curiosity Museum at Thanksgiving Point (we have an annual pass, so it was free and didn't count as part of his $6). Daisy had a bit of a fever but there was NO WAY she was going to miss this date that she had been dying with excitement about all day. She wasn't showing any other symptoms so I let her go. Abe bought them French fries and frozen custard to share, and then they played at the museum on the playground for a couple hours. They both loved it.

Malachi took Junie out for ice cream, and then they went to the Farm Country part of Thanksgiving Point. Junie loves pigs so Malachi decided that it would be fun for her to go see real pigs. It was so cute to see him planning it out for her.

They wanted to take pictures of themselves in the car. I love Junie's sweet little head on Ky's shoulder.

As an added bonus, there were bunnies!

And baby lambs!

And they got to ride the ponies, which they loved.

Pigs are…just pigs, but Junie oinked at this one and he oinked back. They bonded. She was happy and it was adorable.

My favorite part was just watching them interact with each other, talking and holding hands and giggling together. I mostly tried to stay out of the way and let them do their own thing, so I was just watching from afar, but I could see how much they were loving it all. Such a joyful thing, to see one's children being friends!

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B is for Birds, C is for Custard

I was hoping "B" could be for "Bald Eagle" because February is often a good time to see Bald Eagles at Farmington Bay—at least that's what I'd heard. But for whatever reason (too warm? too late/early in the day? too late in the season?) there weren't any. So—B was for Birds instead, and there were plenty of those! Farmington Bay is a great area to birdwatch. We ate Breakfast at a nearby restaurant just for good measure. :)

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"C" was for Custard—frozen custard, to be precise. We looked up all the places serving frozen custard on Yelp, and went to the ones that were close enough. I think we tried four different places (am I forgetting one, Sam?). We just ordered a couple items at each place and everyone had small tastes.

It was a bit hard to do a VALID comparison with so many variables coming into play. Really we ought to have had them all side by side, but that seemed logistically impossible without some of them melting. But, we gave it a valiant effort. We tried Freddy's, Rita's, Nielsen's, and Culver's. Culver's was our clear winner and I think Freddy's was second.

(Other alphabet weekends: here).

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A is for Application

Seb's application. The bottom spiral section says "If you have a dog and/or cat, you can't be a Nielson. If your name starts with D or J, you can't be a Nielson. [ummm, super subtle dig at your little sisters, Seb!] **WE DO NOT ALLOW 50 or older." I was sorry to hear that. Guess the kids'll be out a couple parents in a decade or so. Also, good thing he asked "Do you have a dog or a cat" in two different ways, just to make sure. Don't want any dog- or cat-owners slipping through the screening!!

Remember when we used to do Alphabet Weekends? It was fun and we liked it, and then for several years everything seemed too busy and we felt that we just couldn't muster up the energy anymore. And then suddenly, we felt that we could. So we're back at it. I don't know if I will post them all here (or how timely such posts will be), but on the other hand, where else would I record these things? I feel that they ought to be preserved for posterity (that is, if any posterity manage to make it through the stringent application process).

For letter "A," Sam had us all prepare applications for someone who wants to become a member of the Nielson family. We're pretty selective, frankly (some more than others). Abe's application ran to about 15 single-spaced pages, and heaven help you if you have any blood conditions! And several of the children turn out to be rather mercenary little wretches, you'll notice. But by all means, consider applying! We do at least eat well, most of the time, if I do say so myself!

Do you like bunnies?
Do you like School?
Do you like flight?
Have you been on a plane?
What is your favorite interest?
Rules: No jumping on couch. Clean home on Friday. Naps if 1-5. No video games. Piano lesson if 8-20.
Pay per month $100. Pay each kid $20 per month.

 Malachi's application told everyone the rules right up front. Probably a good idea. I wasn't aware of all of these rules, but, you know. Ky also had an official-looking sticker prepared which could be placed in the "Becom a Nielson" box upon successful completion of the application.

Abe's application was very official—lots of legal disclaimers and waivers to sign and so forth. It's good he specified that people have to agree with the family's "main views." We wouldn't want any messy political disagreements at the dinner table! Also, there is NO ROOM for blood problems here. Sorry, hemophiliacs! Maybe we might make an exception for mild anemia? BUT DON'T COUNT ON IT!

I also really appreciate the emphasis on having sufficient savings and income. We don't want any free-loaders, darn it! And prior toilet training! Yes! Why didn't I think of making that a requirement years ago? I tell you, if Abe hadn't already been in the family, he would have gotten in on the strength of this application alone.

Name.
Phone number.
You have to know what we learn in school.
You can't play with my penguins.
You can't wear my dresses.

Daisy's application is really more of a "take the pledge" sort of document. She covered all her major concerns clearly and succinctly, I think.

My application. You really have to know your "Scarlet Pimpernel," apparently. I know some of you that meet that requirement. You're well on your way to joining us! Better start thinking of your favorite toe to stub.

Sam's application was, of course, a masterpiece from start to finish. I especially liked that he required applicants to list their previous families and reasons for leaving. Can't be too careful. Also, were you raised by wolves?

My goodness, I hate the phrase "Lordy Lordy look who's forty!"

Well, that does it for the applications. Hope to have some great team members joining us soon!

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