I made lamb shank a little while ago and apparently Silas liked it so much that he got a straw and tried to suck the marrow out of the bone.

We had a lovely Easter last Sunday. The boys played Coup, had an Easter egg hunt, ate great food, and enjoyed having Jace's family around.

This week Gideon got to dissect a frog during his science class. Apparently he did an amazing job of it. His science teacher (his aunt Kodie) is pretty sure that he should grow up to be a surgeon now.

Yesterday Gideon woke up and immediately started doing one of his chores. As he worked, he told me: "Mom, I just thought up a philosophy: maybe I can do hard things sometimes." About thirty seconds later he said, "Mom, I thought up another philosophy: I'm better at doing easy things."

First, the sequel to my last blog post...we found and captured the hamster and returned it to the pet store. Hallelujah!

Last weekend we got a really good snow storm and the boys had so so much fun sledding, building snow forts, and shoveling the driveway and sidewalk.

For Ambrose's birthday I got him a fish tank with some guppies. Although he loves his guppies, I had no idea that I was opening up Pandora's Box. Before I knew it, both Gideon and Silas were clamoring for their own pets. At first Gideon thought that an Asian forest scorpion was a good idea. When I managed to talk him out of that, he settled on a hamster. After trying in vain to dissuade him from this foray into hamster ownership, I capitulated. Gideon became the proud new owner of  "Spud."

The very next morning as I was making breakfast, Gideon said, "Mom, I think the hamster may have gotten loose." Upon further questioning, it became clear that he did not "think it got loose"; he knew it. The hamster had escaped while he was trying to put it in a hamster ball. We sealed off the door to his room with a towel and managed to catch it, but this performance was repeated again later in the week. Then, on Friday night, Gideon didn't latch the top of his cage shut and the hamster escaped somewhere in our house. We spent hours looking for it Saturday and also set two catch-and-release mousetraps, but alas, the little bugger is still at large. Six days of hamster ownership. Three escapes. One tiny little pooping, peeing, chewing menace somewhere in my house. Pet success again! ✅

In other news, Silas and Ambrose started public school again on Tuesday. I tried to take a "first day of school" picture, but this was the best I got with Silas' limited patience for such things.

Ambrose's B-day

Ambrose had a fun birthday part 1 in Provo and a good birthday on Thursday. I think that this box of Reese's Puffs from Silas was one of his favorite presents.

He also got to go to Wahooz yesterday to celebrate.

Christmas Season 2020

We went to see the Christmas lights in Caldwell. I didn't take a picture of it, but everyone's favorite was the fire-breathing Loch Ness Monster.

The boys collaborated on a gingerbread house. It immediately collapsed, but they had a fun time making it.

We celebrated "Christmas Part 1" on December 22nd.

Silas & Gideon waiting for Ambrose to re-wake up so that they could open their stockings. (Ambrose was awake at 4am and then woke me up at 5am and then climbed into bed with me and fell back asleep.)

I told Silas that he couldn't touch any of the presents until Grandma & Grandpa arrived...so he camped out about two feet from the tree & stared at the presents & waited. 😀

On the 23rd, I drove the boys to Smith & Edwards where they were picked up by Peter and taken to Provo to enjoy "Christmas Part 2."

Earlier this week, I was going over a writing assignment with Ambrose and noticed that he hadn't capitalized the word "I." I reminded him that "I" is always capitalized. He seemed rather surprised and perplexed by this rule. It wasn't until the next day's writing assignment that I understood the source of his confusion:

It's been a busy couple of weeks and I can't believe that November is almost over! Last week the boys and I took a trip to St. George.

This week we've had a lot of fun celebrating Thanksgiving with family. Riki's family and Jace's family both got to come to Idaho this year.

Payden with some of her admiring fans. Ambrose refers to Payden as "the life of the party."

Halloween 2020

We had lots of Halloween-related fun this week. The boys had a Halloween party at their homeschool co-op on Thursday. On Friday, we went to Linder Farms and then carved pumpkins. Gideon also went to his friends' house for a party Friday night. Then on Saturday the boys got to go trick-or-treating and also watched part of the BYU football game.

My niece McKay made this Frido Kahlo cake on Halloween (we nicknamed her Frido-stein).

A couple of weeks ago we went to Babby Farms where we got to pet and feed exotic animals. It was lots of fun.

Silas named this friendly monkey "Lard Cakes."

The black blob in the background is a yak.

After Babby Farms we went to Grandma and Grandpa Stott's house where Ambrose rode Grandpa's pet steer.

We went to the bike park yesterday. The boys were huge fans!

August 9th-15th

Riki's family came to visit for a few days, so we had some fun family dinners and also went to Eagle Island on Tuesday. At Eagle Island, the boys got to paddle board, kayak, and swim with their cousins.

On Friday, I drove the boys to Ogden where they were picked up by Grandma Wall and relayed back to Provo. The boys will spend the next week in Provo with Peter.

It's strange to look back on the last post from July 5th because so much has shifted in all of our lives during the past twenty-one days. Just a couple of days after writing that post (on our thirteenth anniversary), Peter and I met with a divorce attorney. (Hence the address change on this blog from 7seven07.blogspot.com to thewallboys.blogspot.com.) So, in the past three weeks

• We started the divorce process.
• Peter hunted for and found a place to rent and then moved out.
• We had an offer accepted on a house in Idaho and hurried the financing through so that our closing dates could line up better.
• I registered the boys for a homeschooling program in Idaho.
• We closed on our current house and have been busy packing and cleaning.

In addition to those things, Gideon also got in a bike accident this week when the front fork of his bike snapped off. He was wearing a helmet, but he hit his chin and blacked out. He also scraped off the skin on his right arm and both of his knees.

On the positive side, we got rain this week and when it rains in St. George all of the neighbors come out to celebrate and it becomes an impromptu party.

We also had a party with the neighbors on Pioneer Day.

Tomorrow we will load the U-Haul and finish cleaning the house and either tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday morning, we will begin our trek to Idaho.

It has been a busy two weeks! The boys and I went on a fun trip to Provo and Idaho.

 While we were gone, Peter traded in our car and bought a truck.

We got back from our trip on Tuesday of this week. On Thursday afternoon, we listed our house for sale and on Friday afternoon, we signed a purchase contract and filled out the seller's disclosures. On Saturday, we celebrated Independence Day with an early-morning trip to Toquerville Falls and fireworks in the evening.