Merry Christmas

So it's been since Thanksgiving since we made a blog post. Oh well.

Thanksgiving 2010 greetings

Cats and Rats and Septezanne

Isaac has been created informational posters for some of his vivid creatures, complete with vital statistics and binomial nomenclature.

We all enjoyed a trip on Friday afternoon to visit Xander and Gwen's extremely cute and friendly future pets...(Isaac's and Laurelin's aren't born yet.)

Speaking of friendly pets, Cosmo came back from one of his frequent neighborhood forays with a slash/puncture wound on the side of his chest. He needed veterinary attention of course...about $300 worth! Now he's not the only one feeling the pain, but we're glad he'll be okay. He's on antibiotics and pain meds...the main meds make him goofy...and the other one...well, let's just say he can sit on the litter box and still miss.

Multi-Tasking Gone Awry

It was time for the kids to get ready for bed. The two girls exited the bathroom and Gwen announced brightly, "Laurelin and I were doing MULTI-TASK." Kelly asked encouragingly, "You were multi-tasking? How did you do it?"
"I was brushing my teeth while I was on the toilet!" Laurelin explained.
"And I was saying my prayers while I was on the toilet!" Gwen added.

Oh, well. At least they weren't driving and texting...

I'm glad they understand each other

Xander created a game for us to play for Family Home Evening tonight. He asked a question (that he had written) and the first one to hit the buzzer got to answer it. If they got it right they won points. Here is one of our favorite little exchanges from the game:
Xander: How tall can a person's legs be?
Gwen: Big enough to reach the ground!
Xander: Correct!

Drum, zill, and dance duet

The sound didn't come through all that well, but if you'd like to see/hear our performance, here it is. We made all the music ourselves.

Halloween 2010

cosmo the cat + a mantis

Gwen's philosophy on grown-ups:

"Arrgghh! They eat too much and then take too long in the bathroom! I never want to grow up!"

The Italian Street
Being a play about three Italian kids fighting on a street in Italy
By
Xander Wilson


Characters:
Lee
Kuzon
Rholu
Adult

Lee walks by Rhoku
Rhoku bumps Lee
Rhoku: Stupido!
Lee: Porco!
Rhoku: Porco struzzo!
Lee: Stupido porco struzzo!
Kuzon walks in
Kuzon: Come stai?
Rhoku turns
Kuzon turns
Rhoku: Porca miseria!
Lee: Porca miseria!
All start wrestling, Adult walks on stage.
Adult: Basta basta basta basta BASTA!
Lee: blah blah blah blah blah!
Rhoku: Si’! Blah blah blah blah!
Kuzon: Si’! Blah blah blah blah!
All smile, then all start to laugh./ All walk off stage./Adult reenters./
Adult: Come stai?
Adult walks off stage.

Isaac's planetary poetry

Isaac wrote a poem for each of the planets this week. Here are a few highlights.
Venus limerick:
There once was a planet called Venus,
Whose middle name was Beatrice.
She had lots of craters,
and grew no potaters,
That little old planet named Venus.

Earth haiku:
Earth, the blue planet
Seventy percent water
Home to us all

Pluto haiku:
Poor Pluto; a dwarf
It's very cold there
Pluto is lonely

Mars limerick:
There once was a Roman called Mars,
Just for fun, he smashed up some cars,
Then they called him a planet,
And he had a new habit
of chillin' out up there 'mong the stars.

Isaac's 11th birthday

Not just puppets...

Moonwalk

To Commemorate Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sept. 16th)

tomatoes, puppets and fry-oh my!

We had pasta salad for lunch today, with basil, tomatoes, avocado and cucumber. Everything except the avocado came from our garden...I love that feeling.

This Friday Maxed Out Puppetry performed for the ninth year as the pre-show of Bedtime Stories at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. Rus and I were supposed to meet the rest of Max at 4:30 pm. We left Salt Lake at 3pm; usually it takes us about 45 minutes to get down to Orem. We got stuck on I-15 with a major traffic accident that involved a helicopter being on the freeway to lifeflight someone. We got off I-15 as soon as we could and intended on taking State St down. So we hit another major accident on State St. As soon as we got past that, there was a house fire and traffic was down to one lane. Add Labor Day weekend traffic to all of that. At this point we were asking ourselves if we would get there before the show started, let alone on time for practice, or if the universe was sending us a sign that we really shouldn't be going. We managed (after an hour and a half) to get there with about 15 minutes to spare before the show started, whew. The show itself seemed to go pretty well, there was even a fair sized chunk of the audience who were "repeat-Maxed-out-viewers" ha ha. We did a new skit based on the Brave Little Tailor, starring Ollie as the Brave Little Exterminator, Rustystilton, and the perennial crowd favorite, Yankee Doodle (in about 2 minutes, a new record).
Rus' Celestial Pearl Danios spawned this week, the fry count is up to five, woo hoo! Just in case you don't know, the Celestial Pearl Danio is a tiny, brightly colored fish from Myanmar, that was discovered in 2006.

like father like daughter

Rus' dad used to be amazed at the way that Rus (just a kid at the time) could go outside and hunt down worms to feed to his various critters. A few months ago Gwen found a tiny baby mantis. She wanted to keep it, so we put it in a critter keeper and she named it Dig. She's watched Rus catch flies and other bugs to feed to Dig all summer. The other day she yelled out triumphantly, "I caught a fly for Dig!" To my shame I have to admit I didn't quite believe her, I figured she was playing imagination. She wasn't. Four year old Gwen had single handedly caught a fly in her bug net, even squeezing the end of the net shut properly so the fly couldn't escape. In the pictures you see Gwen with the net and a close up of the fly in the net.
It constantly amazes me how much she is like Rus as far as critters are concerned. It shouldn't surprise me, but it does. Like the time she was three and informed me I was feeding the green beans to the fish incorrectly. (She told me I had to split them open first.) Or the time she caught the angel fish all by herself. Or every time she helps Rus change the fish water, or catch various critters. Like father like daughter hee hee.

a few more catch up videos

We were listening to a song about faeries, so Gwen decided to don Laurelin's faerie wings and do a dance.

Laurelin's first solo

This last Friday Laurelin performed her first solo at Desert Gypsy Dance Company's annual MiniFest. It was raining quite a lot for nearly the whole show, the stage was a puddle and the wind was pretty chilly. Halima (the troupe director for DGDC) told her she didn't have to dance if she was too cold and didn't want to, but she still wanted to go on. And she did a great job! The crowd was very supportive and clapped and cheered her on. She was so pumped afterwards-just hopping up and down and saying she wanted to do another performance hee hee hee. Honestly I was pretty darn excited myself. In the video you can see her skipping and jumping after she got off the stage, it's so cute! Thank you to all of you who came to support her!

It's been a while since we wrote on the blog, so I'm going to play some catch up.
Storytime with Rus is a pretty entertaining affair. The kids love it-he has all kinds of funny voices for the characters, and the puppets have been known to join in as well. He frequently adds in funny comments to what is happening in the story, and the kids will often request, "Babbo-do add ins!" Gwen however sometimes just wants the story read straight. The other night Rus was reading a story and all the kids were asking for add ins. Gwen had picked out the book, though, and wanted it read how it was written. When he came to a part that said something about a "fancy feast", he said "That's a kind of cat food!" Gwen reprimanded him, "No add ins, Babbo!". He replied, "That wasn't an add in, it was an observation." Not to be deterred she said, "No observations either!"
School started again last Monday, so far so good more or less. Holly is staying with us for a while which we are all enjoying. She went down to spend a few days with Kerry and Mike and when she returned the kids all cheered and Gwen said, "Holly, I can't live without you!!"
Saturday we were able to visit a local rattery here in Salt Lake. It was really neat! She had beatiful friendly ratties. She is planning on having some litters ready for adoption near the end of October and we are going to have each of the kids get their own rats. It's about time they had their own pets.
A few weeks ago we were able to go the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum with Rus' mom, and then that Saturday we went kayaking with both his parents. It was great to spend some time with just us and Grandma and Grandpa.

Final Battle

Here is our latest video offering of kids having fun:

Power Ems

The kids and I are anxiously awaiting Kelly's return from girls' camp. To occupy ourselves, we decided to film yet another goofy video. This one is a commercial for a bizarre candy.

Calveras Big Trees

We took a day trip to Calveras big trees to see the HUGE redwoods. Here's a short video:

3rd of July in California

Here's what we did for the 3rd of July:

Father's Day

This wasn't actually taken on Father's Day, but we originally planned to put it up on that day. It seemed appropriate. However, the blog software had other ideas. It seems to be working now.

This Saturday was the Scottish Festival and Highland Games at Thanksgiving Point that we go to every year. Other than Xander disappearing for about 20 minutes (THANK YOU Jon and Chastity for finding him!!!!!) we all had a good time. Thank you Holly for coming with us! Sarah, Justin and Juma and Jody and Ammon and Snow were in town for a few days so we all gathered at Rick and Shelley's- the first time all 7 siblings have been in the same room for a long time (probably also the last time for a long time). It was really great to see everyone.

Breakfast

Gwenisms from this week:
Gwen: Were you at the Theater? (She pronounced it "Cedar.")
Rus: The Cedar?
Gwen: You know, the place where you go to see movies that haven't been made yet!

Gwen: (in the bathroom) I think I'm getting a diary.


This is the kind of thing we do for fun.

birthday

Cosmo climbed onto the roof. He was happy when I climbed up onto the picnic table to get him down.

Laurelin's birthday dress and fairy crown. She enjoyed her birthday full of friends, some boffer violence, and a princess ball.

We went to the "Sunrise Safari" at the zoo before the party, and watched the baby elephant, Zuri, play the ham.

I'll volunteer...

Xander--(on the way to Home Depot with Rus) What would happen if you were taking Cosmo on a walk, and if you knocked on a door, and Cosmo ran in, and a retired magician answered, who had a house full of ducks?

Xander (Overheard): I'll volunteer for anything, as long as it's weird.


Gwen, after drawing a picture of Jesus, asked, "What's the mailbox to Heaven?" (She explained that she wanted to send the picture to Him.)

Laurelin approached me as I was preparing an object lesson for Sunday School about traps and snares. She immediately came up with an object lesson, which I shared with my class. They appreciated her insight.

A picture of an ogre/cyclops hybrid Isaac created, by carving it in polystyrene and making a relief painting of it:

dancing at Sultra's Speak Through Dance Show

Babbo knows just about everything...

Gwen saw some yellow ribbons tied around trees this morning and asked what it meant. I tried to explain, and then she started talking about other color possibilities.
Gwen- "Green could be the seletary color for green things!"
Me- "Ummm...what's seletary, Gwen?"
Gwen- "Yeah, I don't know! What is seletary? Let's ask Babbo, he will probably know."

Later when she was making a playdo sculpture, she said, "This is going to be so good, it will be glorious!"

cleanliness is apparently a waste of time...

This morning when Xander was going into his bedroom to get dressed after his shower I heard him mutter, "Showers in the morning are just a waste of time...".
He could have been extra resentful this morning of my insistence that he practice normal hygiene because I also subjected him to having his toenails and fingernails trimmed. I then performed an archeological dig into his cuticles so that it would not look like he was wearing black nail polish (and this, after just scrubbing them in the shower!). I asked him what he did to get them so dirty and he replied, "I go to school!" Hmmm, I wasn't aware that they had started a garden at school.... I think it actually comes from the fact that whenever they use Elmer's glue at school he tends to rub it all over his hands like lotion and then dig in the mud at recess, effectively glueing the dirt into his nails...ahh, boys.

Top Secret Spring Day

Holly arrived about a week ago to attend BYU for the summer. She first came to our place and spent the night and hung out and we all had a great time. It was actually sunny and not too cold out so we all went for a walk and picked flowers and made fairy crowns (yay!)Laurelin and I donned out fairy wings and took some pictures, and we got a few videos of Xander blowing bubbles and Gwen giving us an interesting explanation of bb gun bullets. Enjoy! ....ok the blog isn't letting me put up the video of Gwen, so I'll put that one up on my facebook and you can see it there. Sorry!

hyperactivity

A while ago, we made a music video to a song titled "Hyperactivity" that the kids really like. (Structural ambiguity recognized...either referent is applicable.) Some of you may have seen it, although we made a slight change to the ending.

More Funny Gwen

Gwen came to me this morning and said

"Mamma, Isaac and Xander and Laurelin are bugging me."

I asked, "What are they doing?"

She replied, "by, you know, talking about butter!"

Funny Gwen

Today Gwen said to me

"Maybe next winter is the day that I will grow up."

Maybe so.

Easter

About half of the Easter Eggs we dyed were normal, but some came out very dark. Watch our short video to find out why:

Xander's To-Do List

Yesterday Xander made a to-do list. We laughed our faces off reading it. The really funny thing was how many of these he'd actually checked off by the time we found the list.

(the first three he did in lower case Roman numerals, I guess they were the like the "preface" to his list)
i.Get home from church

ii.Get permission from Babbo to feed Hiro. (we were glad he remembered about getting permission on this one.)

iii. Gather pokemon cards

1.Go to Gramma's house.

2. Play car game.

3. Ride a pillow down the stairs. (yes, this one was checked off)

4. Get juice box.

5. Explain Pokemon to Ethan.

6. Round up cousins.

7. Gather weapons.

8. Plunder the TV room.

9. Plunder wherever the girls are.

10. Break up, find Isaac and do helicopter.

11. Wrestle nearest person.

12. Celebrate birthday. (We were having the birthday party at Grandma's and Grandpa's for the March birthdays)

13. Gather rations.

14. Go home.

15. Play baby blastoise until we fall asleep.

16. At middle of night get up and dance around the kitchen.

Gwen's Day Out

Last Monday Rus had the day off, but the kids all still had school. So it was just Rus, Gwen and me. We went to Ikea to get much needed bunk beds for the girls (Laurelin will be 7 in May and is still in a toddler bed). Gwen helped us pick it out, and had a good time being the only shopping helper. Then after lunch we went to the zoo. She got to pick everything we saw and go at her own pace, and we got to enjoy spending some time with just our youngest. Gwen is so special, she always makes us smile, and makes the day brighter. We got this picture of her and Rus near the rhino statue and I think it came out pretty perfect.

Kelly's solo at Springfest 2010

Hi All,

Here's the youtube link for my solo at Springfest. Enjoy! (Sorry if you end up getting this link twice-here and Facebook, just trying to make sure that everyone who wanted to see it, gets to)

: )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-haZZpuOVDo

No Strings Attached

Hurrah for azithromycin monohydrate! I'm finally getting healthy!

Maxed Out puppetry performed yesterday at "No Strings Attached," the 8th Annual puppetry festival at SLC library. We have performed there many times, but this was the first time Kelly performed with us. It went fairly well, considering the small amount of prep time we were able to muster for it.

The performance who followed us was by Freddie "The Stringman" Spencer, a mostly-marionettist who has worked on all sorts of TV programs, including a lot that I watched as a kid. He can do things with marionettes that I wouldn't have otherwise believed. We're including a couple of clips here, if the computer permits.

Maxed Out Puppetry at Utah's Hogle Zoo in the Paper

Maxed Out Puppetry's show at the Utah's Hogle Zoo made it into the paper! Here's the link, there are two pictures, Max is in the 2nd.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700014820/Photos-Fairy-tails.html

Shrimpy blog post

Rus was a guest again on www.petliferadio.com, this time on aquarium shrimp as pets. Here's the link if you'd like to hear it:

http://www.markiac.addr.com/PET_LIFE_RADIO/thinkep48.html

one of the videos

The last few weeks

Howdy Folks! Sorry it has been so long since we’ve updated you on our crazy life. But it’s been, well, crazy. I’ve had three performances to prepare for, and a midterm (and been sick), Rus has been sick off and on, (mostly on) for 4 weeks now, and Xander has had random bouts of vomiting. So, don’t feel too bad, the laundry hasn’t been getting done either. We will try to fill you in on what’s been happening the last couple of weeks.

Isaac participated in the district-level science fair, receiving a red “outstanding” ribbon.

Rus has had some sort of nasty respiratory infection and a case of laryngitis. Though he still feels quite sick, luckily the laryngitis is on its way out, since Rus and Isaac performed in “Fairy Tails” at the zoo yesterday. They were there along with Jon, Bethel, Dave, and Mikey—all Wilsons—so it was probably the first Maxed-Out Puppetry performance involving so many people with the same last name ever. The Deseret News and KTVX channel 4 were there as well, filming/taking pictures of the performance, so who knows—we might show up in the paper or on TV. As part of the program, a zoo docent brought an opossum and an eastern indigo snake that Rus used to work with when he was an Eco there. All of the kids were good techies backstage, and Isaac also controlled the fire puppet. Some of the older kids are interested in doing some speaking parts, and they’re getting old enough to do it, so that will be fun.

The other night Kelly’s jacket was lying on the floor, and Cosmo, our kitty, decided it would make a good cave. He crawled underneath it, using it like a blanket, and hung out there quite happily for some time.

One morning when Rus was just about to leave for work (i.e. it was early) we noticed the moon looking particularly big and dark and beautiful, so we’re putting up one of those pictures as well. Isaac actually wrote a poem about that moon:

An eternal moon

Hung over darkness,

But God spoke,

And the darkness was banished forever.

The last Saturday in February was the recital for the Celtic Center where I have been taking my Scottish Highland/Cape Breton Step dance class. I performed a fling, and a step dance. The fling went better than I expected, but I totally botched my step dance…so the step dance video will not be appearing here lol. Even with messing that up, and the fact that I’m not exactly 12 years old, and don’t get off the ground like a 12 year old on the Highland, it was a lot of fun, and I’ve really enjoyed taking the class. I’m taking a break for spring and summer, and hopefully will be able to start up again in the fall.

Yesterday was Springfest, the bellydance festival up here in SLC put on by Thia. Xander, Laurelin, and Gwen came with me in the morning to watch some dancing, and look at “sparklies” in the shopping booths. Then I went back later that afternoon to get ready to dance. Anya and Valerie did solos, and they were both awesome! I performed with Anya’s troupe, Tiger Eyes Dance Company, and I performed my solo to John Simmers and J-Time by Wolfstone. I feel like it went really well-it was a very special moment for me for many reasons. One of my goals when I dance is to make my audience feel-to uplift them, and show them the beauty and hope in life, and I think that happened last night- quite a few people made positive comments afterwards. Hopefully that doesn’t sound like I’m tooting my own horn. I don’t know if the feeling of the dance and the feeling that was in the room will come through on the video or not (which will be forthcoming, not ready yet), but it did feel really good to dance.

We’re putting up pictures of Isaac with his ribbon, Cosmo being cute, and various Springfest pictures, Blogger is being stupid and not letting us put up videos right now, so I'll try to add those later.

Science Fair

Hello! This won't be a particularly long post, both Rus and I are sick with something-or-other, so I'm just doing a bare minimum...so here's the news-

Isaac won the science fair! I picked him from school and lo and behold, he had a trophy in his hands! He was very excited to say the least. So he'll go the district fair in early March. Go triops!

Gwen has funny ways of explaining things sometimes. Her Tinkerbell blanket that she always has on her bed had a plastic-ish tag on the foot end. Apparently when it went through the dryer one time the tag sort of melted into a hard scratchy lump. Now Gwen hates even normal soft fabric tags, they "bug" her she says. She is forever asking me cut tags off of her clothes, and even her stuffed animals. Needless to say, a scratchy lumpy tag is right out. Rus was putting her to bed the other night and had the blanket backwards, so as the tag was approaching her face she called out, "Watch out for that buggy thing, which is white, which is crumpled, which is a tag!!"

The kids all had a sleep over again with Kerry and Mike and Caeden this weekend. They had a marvelous time of eating sugar, watching movies, and going on walks to the playground and the baby llama near their house. Gwen was so worn out from all the fun that she fell asleep in the car on the way home.

Till next time!

Happy Valentine's Day

Gwen's recent statement is somewhat a propos: "Mamma, you are infinity love!"

The boys had a successful showing at the science fair. Their Triops made something of a splash. (Not literally...they didn't bring the actual wee beasties...) We have some pictures of it that we'll get around to posting eventually...

Belated Moab

We finally managed to pull some pictures from our last Moab trip from our deceased camera.

Springfest and park pictures

Hello All!

Just to let you know I am performing in Thia's annual Springfest (a bellydance festival) March 6th at the Salt Lake Fairgrounds. The festival admission is $7 per person, ages 5 and under are free. The most amazing band ever in the world (and anyone who truly knows me knows I'm talking about Wolfstone www.wolfstone.co.uk) has very kindly granted permission to use some of their music for my performance, so I will be debuting my Scottish Highland/bellydance fusion piece. My performance time is 9:48 pm. I know that's really late, but if you want to come cheer for me I'd love to see you there! Please be aware that it is common for performance times to get either bumped up or pushed back at these kinds of all day festivals, so if you are coming I would recommend getting there a bit early. (Plus it's fun to just come and see lots of fun dancers and sparkly stuff for sale!) I am also performing with my awesome friend Anya's troupe, Tiger Eyes Dance Company, at 8:18 pm. She has done a great job with the choreography, and I think the set will be great!

Ok,thanks for reading my shameless promotion (hey if you can't shamelessly promote yourself on a blog then where can you?) now I'll let you enjoy the pictures of the kids playing in the park in peace hee hee hee