Life got very complicated for me and I just realized it’s been 6 months since I wrote a blog post. Sheesh! A ton of stuff happened. Last fall the family flew to New Mexico and met Grandpa Phil. We saw that bats in Carlsbad caverns (but not as batty as we had hoped), we enjoyed the caves, we hunted for rocks, and at lots and lots of delicious food.
The kids’ school does a lot of extracurricular activities, and many types of fundraisers to pay for them. They host Market Day, well 2 types of Market Day. There’s the one that’s a fundraiser where people pay to host a booth, then sell their wares. I laser cut keyrings with the school name and mascot, Moriarty 3D printed a bunch of fidgets, and Lorelei sold random stuff from her room. Every dollar the kids made they spent on other 3D printed stuff like dragons and tiny animals. The other type of Market Day is the fake money kind where the kids set up stalls and sell to each other. They came home with more 3D printed stuff after that too.
Lorelei announced to us the other day that she and her friend Mirav got hug married at school. Not kiss married, that’s gross. Pip and I tried not to howl in laughter. The kids are both very tender. They want snuggles every morning, several hugs before they leave for school, more hugs throughout the day. They just really love us. Moriarty missed me especially a day I had to go into the office for a long day. At bedtime he needed 3 rounds of hugs. I asked, did you miss me? He replied, yeah and I told him I missed you too. I’m very proud to be growing a tender and compassionate young man. He’s not just compassionate, he’s 100% a maker kid like his parents. He was making a cheese sandwich and realized both cheese slicers were in the running dishwasher. So he dug through some drawers and pulled out the vegetable peeler. It worked great! Another day he noticed one of the lights on a plastic sword had broken. He came to me to help and I said I was busy, but pointed out the screws he’d have to remove to check it out. A few min later I found him on the floor, with the electronics exposed, and he’d found the broken wire. I was pretty proud of that too. He’s funny too. He’s been doing a D&D Larping afterschool club and the first character he created was a rogue named Ninja. A rogue is basically a ninja so it’s like a cat named Cat. He’s curious and logical. He started a conversation out of the blue asking about the ecosystem shock when Noah's Ark returned. M:how are they going to deal with the bunnies? The bunnies are going to have a ton of babies in the time it takes to grow a single kangaroo. That made me laugh out loud.
Lorelei is in a swirl of singing rainbow sunshine. She announced the other day, I’m in a phase where I only draw rainbows. She wears a dress, jewelry, and hair clips most days. Sometimes she does her make-up, which can be alarming. She passes out tickets to her dancing shows and then Pip, Moriarty, and I sit in a row and watch her freestyle. She isn’t good at learning choreography, but she has so much passion it doesn’t matter. She has regularly been asking me about the meaning of songs, meaning of the imagery, inspiration, etc. She’s so curious. She has paused dance class and started gymnastics. She’s doing extremely well. After her first session she leveled up to the next class. I love watching her improve at skills and have so much fun doing it. A couple weeks ago she started “baby crossfit” which is actually called Kid Strong. It’s another very physical, demanding, fun activity. They both just blow me away.
Because I was so behind on the blog, I made 2 sets of new pictures. Aug-Dec 2025 and Jan - Mar 2026. Passwords are always “mal”.
Fun quote:
Lisa: Can we have not talking time?
Lorelei: I don’t know how to stop talking