Breakfast in bed...

I woke up this morning to the stupid alarm clock blaring and the baby crying from the other room. And just as I was ready roll over and plunge my head as far under the pillows as it would go, I heard a sweet voice at my elbow saying, "Here Mom, I made you breakfast in bed." He was so proud of himself, and rightly so. As far as actual food made by an actual 6 year old goes, this was actually edible. (Although he had a little trouble with the spreading as you can see...) A sweet and simple gesture that let me fortify myself enough to crawl out of bed, take care of the screaming baby, find the camera and blog about it. Now I am ready for nap time...

6 year old reasoning...

Jacob just came to me and said, "Mom. I have something I want to tell you. And please let me finish my sentence completely before you respond to it. Okay?" Ruthlessly suppressing a giggle I agreed to his terms. Then he said, "I have decided that I am not going to do my homework tonight and I will explain why in a paper to my teacher. And don't worry, it will be a good reason, not just that I didn't want to do it." I asked what the reason was. "Well, it's just not hard enough homework, so I don't want to do it." I explained that that wasn't a decision he got to make and to go do the "not hard enough" homework anyway. But after he left I got to wondering what the teacher's reaction would be if instead of a work sheet where he copies words like cat, hat, and mat, she got a letter from her 1st grade student saying that he didn't feel the work was challenging enough for him. I think next time we have this argument I will let him compose the excuse and submit it as a creative writing assignment.


"He is one lab accident away from becoming a super-villain."

I fear that one day this will be true of my son too.

I love my kids...

I love that Evie gets so excited to wear matching jammies with her sister.

I love that Evie is very into giving presents right now. I am lying on the couch wearing my duckie jammies and a pink plastic bead necklace that she gave me for my "birthday". (Apparently I just turned 3, I was 2, and now I am 3...)

I love that both Jake and Evie can't do enough to help with the baby, there have been flat out races down the hall to be the first to get wipes or diapers.

I love that Jake is secure enough in his boy-hood to tell me he wants me to make him some pajama pants out of blue floral fabric he found in my stash. I was teasing him that I would sew lace on the bottom and his response, "No Mom. Lace would be too much."

I love that he is so literal it is really hard to get a rise out of him.

I also love that if I ask Jake to get me daytime clothes for Lila he will not only make sure her shirt and pants are matching, he will also pick out a hair bow too.

I love that we have a new family tradition on Saturday nights. Family Popcorn Movie Night. I love that something as simple as her own little bowl of popcorn sends Evie into transports of happiness.

I love that they both have such tender hearts.

I don't love that I traumatized them by choosing Willow for our last family movie night. Evie spent the whole time sobbing, "Why is she going to kill the baby?!" After the brownies flew across the screen yelling, "I stole the baby!" she was done and we had to turn it off. Even though I repeatedly assured her that the movie ends happily and the baby doesn't die.

I love that Evie keeps referring to brownies (the fairy variety) as muffins.

I love that Lila has figured out how to talk on the phone and grabs ours at every opportunity. She holds it up to the side of her head and says "hi... hi... hi..."

I don't love that she has a hereditary condition known as Helen Keller baby syndrome. (For those of you who have never heard of this condition, it is where anytime anyone around her has food she makes a bee line for your plate and then grabs for it and yells until you share. I am afraid I will be reduced to eating behind a newspaper any day now...)

I love that when Jake has a nightmare and comes upstairs he will get in bed with Evie instead of us.

I don't love that so much when he gets sick and throws up all over both of them, resulting in three screaming, crying kids at 4 am and extra laundry.

I love that whenever Evie gets hurt, which happens quite often through her reckless enthusiasms, Jake is right by her side holding her hand and telling her it will be ok. He even told me when she got her "flat" lip that he wished that it had happened to him so she wouldn't be in pain.

I love that my kids enjoy singing and music, and that Evie sings everything right now. A sample of her latest song, "I am in Walmart with all of my family, and we are shopping and buying some bread and some cheese and some pickles and some toilet paper..." It was a very long song.

I love that Jake makes lists about everything and that Evie can write her letter E, even though it has four lines to the side instead of three.

I love that every night after I give them a good night kiss they negotiate for 5 more apiece. Good thing moms have unlimited kisses at their disposal.

I love that even after two days of sick kids and not leaving my house I can still think of reasons why I love my children.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

I meant to post this on the 19th, which was the actually holiday, but my weekend got a little away from me...


We went to the library on Friday because they were having a special story time for Talk Like a Pirate Day. (I know Uncle Josh will be proud of us...) Jake was engrossed during all the pirate books, Evie lasted for one and a half, and Lila was a complete pill. But we persevered until they went on a "treasure hunt" and found supplies to make pirate hats...


...which fit so well on my large headed children. As you can see, it fit Raggedy Ann much better. Jake preferred to make a pirate ship. (Please excuse Jake in this picture, apparently he's been at the grog...)


"There's just one word that says it all, Arrgh!
Arrgh, when I'm happy! Arrgh, when I'm sad!
Arrgh, when I'm good or bad!
All together now, arrgh, Arrgh, ARRGH!"

My week for preschool...

I was so nervous about teaching the preschool, and I don't even know why. There are only 4 kids in the group, including my own, so I wasn't that out numbered. And they are all cute and well behaved little kids. Two boys and two girls, it's a nice balance and they are still young enough to be entertained easily. All I can say now that it is over is that it is worth it to have three weeks where I am down to only the baby who is usually napping and I can be super productive for 2 hours.

So for my week we had the letter C and the color yellow. Not too hard right? The hard part is actually turning off the "C is for..." part of my brain. As I was putting some chicken into marinade for dinner tonight I was thinking, "Chicken starts with C, and we can have carrots and cauliflower in cheese sauce!" It's addictive, I tell you.

The first day I set up a little classroom in the living room. It makes me think back to when I was a kid and we would play "teacher". I would have loved to have a chalkboard back then! It was very nice to have it now too though. (Thanks again Pa Dave for Evie's awesome birthday present!)


I found these cute little chalkboards at the dollar store and the kids loved them. Plus then I didn't have four 3 year olds fighting for a turn at the big chalkboard. We practiced writing our letter C's for about 10 seconds, and then they just drew and scribbled to their hearts content. Whatever, chalk starts with the letter C. Works for me. We also read Cows Can't Fly and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.


Then we made cereal necklaces. (And just FYI: cotton yarn does not work well for little hands to string cereal on, we switched to narrow ribbon with much more success.) The kids were more interested in eating the cereal but we managed to get enough of it on the ribbon.

On day 2 we made C crowns. (And how ironic that my child was the only one who glued her C on backwards. She is quite artistic, but the details escape her...) They colored their favorite candy on their crown. That is a green Starburst on Evie's, just in case you were wondering.


We also read The Cloud Book and we went outside to look for clouds but the weather just wasn't cooperating for me. On Monday it was overcast and raining off and on, so we couldn't do it then. And today was sunny without a cloud in the sky. Ah well, no visual aids by Mother Nature for me. The kids colored clouds on blue paper, and seemed entertained enough telling each other what animals they had seen clouds shaped like in the past.


And probably my favorite C of all this week were these: Chocolate Chip Cookies! Yes! A trifecta of C's! And they tasted pretty good too. The kids all got to help put ingredients in the mixer and couldn't have been more proud of how their cookies turned out.

Yup. I guess this preschool thing isn't going to be too bad. But I still like it best when it's the other mothers' turn to teach...

This post is brought to you by the letter B...

Week 2 of preschool and Evie is still loving it. Because of the holiday on Monday we only have one day this week so they packed a ton of fun into 2 hours! They blew bubbles, played with bean bags, and baked bread!


And apparently it was very good bread because Evie couldn't even wait the 30 seconds it took to walk home before taking a bite! Cute girl.



*Next week is my turn to teach the preschool and I am feeling the pressure! Anyone got any great ideas for the letter C?

Webster's eat your heart out...

Last night Brian and Jake ran up the street to Papa Murphy's to pick up a Chicken, Bacon, and Artichoke pizza for our dinner. (I think it is funny that my kids don't really care for regular pizza, offer them pepperoni or cheese and their response is, "ew...yuck!" but they love the one with spinach and artichoke hearts. I must of done something very good in another life to have such un-picky eaters...) On the way up they were listening to my new Sugarland CD, they are a country group and they sing a song called "All I Want To Do". Jake was telling his dad that he really liked the CD and wanted to learn to sing all the songs on it. He said, "I already know that first song. I knew it the first second I heard it." Brian said, "Oh, yeah?" And Jake said, "Yes, well I've heard it (on the radio) an innumerable number of times."

An innumerable number of times?! Is it any wonder I have trouble remembering he is only six sometimes? I am thinking of getting him a thesaurus for Christmas...

A day at the Dr's office

I am calling this her "You want to stick what where?!" face...


Don't worry, we were just there for well checks and flu vaccinations. So nothing too tragic. Lila had her 9 month appointment and Evie had her 3 year. It was odd because Evie was so happy and excited to go see Dr. Reese and tell him that she "just turned free!" But when we got into the exam room and were waiting she got nervous and kept saying she didn't want a turn. Good thing she is all caught up on her vaccinations and didn't have to get a shot!

Both girls are healthy and growing good. Evie has actually slowed down a bit, because she was only in the low 60% for both height and weight. And Lila continues to be my smallest baby at 58% for weight and 74% for height. (I married a tall man to give my children a chance to not be short, so far it seems to be working...) She is the same as my others by having a large head, 92%. I figure they need them for all their smart brains to fit into. In fact, the Dr. was quite blown away by Lila's language skills as she already has 4 distinct words she says and will even combine them into a two word phrase like, "Hi Dad!" and "Mama, baba!" Dr. Reese was telling me that that is a 15 month milestone, but I can't help thinking she is developing those language skills out of self-defense. You'd talk as fast as you could too if you had two people in your face all day long talking a mile-a-minute...

I am still surprised by my baby though. Yesterday afternoon found us back in the doctor's waiting room so Jake could get his flu vaccine and me trying to ride herd on three ornery, hungry and bored children. (It didn't take as long to drive over there as I thought it would, thus a longer wait.) I had Lila on my lap and Evie in a chair next to me while Jake entertained himself with my cell phone. To keep Evie quiet and entertained I started to sing "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands..." To my complete shock, Lila smiled her huge, toothless grin and clapped her hands together! I thought it might have just been a fluke, but she recognizes the song and every time we sing it now she'll clap her hands. Well, she tries really hard. The co-ordination just isn't quite there, so she misses about every third or fourth clap. Which just makes it all the cuter, I think. I tried to capture some video of her doing her various tricks, but she was in a yeti mood and would only say hi or clap after the camera stopped. So frustrating! (I really need to get a camera that takes a video longer than 30 seconds...)

But I did get a great one later of Evie making her belly-laugh by ripping paper. So funny, the random things that will entertain a child...