House O' Sullivans

Pi Day has always been epic for me. When I was teaching at Wasatch Junior high, my classes celebrated heartily. The day's festivities always included Pi artwork, a Pi memorizing contest (there were kids every year who memorized more than 50 digits, sometimes more than 100), Pi explorations, Pi music, Pi poetry, Pi movies, and pie (usually donated by Harmon's, good solid people that they are).  One of my favorite memories of teaching math at Wasatch involves a Pi Day:  I had a certain zealous Geometry class one year. They loved math. They asked for extra proofs. They wanted to derive the formulas that we learned. They thirsted for mathematical knowledge. They were over-zealous . And they were fun . Every Friday, I'd allow them to stand on their desks, and to the beat of my fist pumps, we'd shout out, "WE . . . LOVE . . . MATH!!!!," as loud as we could. Everyone in our wing of the building heard it. That's why I'd only let them do it once a wee...

In February we got to spend some time with our Virginia friends, the Spaldings. One night all of the kids had a sleepover at our house. The kids were in heaven!  I brought the whole herd of kids to our local park for some duck feeding, playground rampaging, rocket launching, soccer, and nature explorations at the nearby spring. Hal with best bud, Phebe Just a cute picture of Loo. She likes to haul out this bunny, seat herself, and peruse sundry literature. She's obviously been observing the three older kids. On January 29th, we celebrated Leap Day in style with a standing broad jump contest. Casey won with a jump of 77 inches. Final standings: Casey--77 inches; Helen--62 inches; Sophie--47 inches; Hallee--52 inches; and Zeke--47 inches.  Our FHE that night included memorizing a "leap scripture"--D&C 42:49-51--"He who hath faith to see shall see. He who hath faith to hear shall hear. The lame who have faith to leap shall leap." ...

I have needed to write this blog entry for a while. I've been avoiding it because it is personal and I prefer to write the personal stuff in my own journal or in the family journal that Casey and I keep together. This blog is like the big plates--the outer goings ons and adventures of our family. The inner stuff lands in the journals. Being able to share my inner self has always been hard for me anyway and definitely not something I'm apt to publish in cyberspace. In January, I wrote about our happy news: We were expecting baby #5 at the end of the summer. Since I wrote that in this space, I feel like I need to write this entry. I had never had a miscarriage, so when I started bleeding I was shocked, scared, and anxious. When I called my midwife and explained what was going on, she seemed unconcerned at first. (I guess it is fairly common for women to bleed during the first trimester.) Since that was not my pregnancy modus, I was an anxious wreck for a few days until...

Here's a glimpse at the past month: epic ski days with the kids at Alta and Brighton, more Monday Math Club sessions culminating in our big event at a cabin up Little Cottonwood Canyon featuring dinner and fractal math with our friends from Virginia, friends' recitals, me on the big screen at our Stake Women's Conference, a day up in Francis with homeschooling friends, lots of homeschool club days (Liberty Girls for Soph and Hal and Henry and Mudge Club for Zeke), skiing with friends at Brighton, Shakespeare performances at the Utah Children's Theater, and gatherings with lots of friends. To this we add church callings, Sophie's ballet classes, Hallee's gymnastics, my tutoring schedule, my education discussion group, the Wasatch Waldorf School that I'm working on several projects with, Soph and Hal's church Activity Days and everything else in between. We have a lot going on but still get to spend ample time together as a family.  (Hurrah for homeschool...