We did it!

Well we made it last week on $7.00 and we ate well. By Sunday night I had to get creative with the meal but it was still good. The best thing was we didn't use our credit card although it was tempting. I can't wait to get 6 mth emergency fund going and we will cut up the card!

More Graedon!

Grae fell down on his bottom the other day and I heard him say "Ouch, I hurt my feelings."

We were talking about tatoos and how one of my relatives has one. Grae didn't think this was a good idea and told me the God had a pressure washer and could wash it off. He has a thing for pressure washers ever since he saw Brian washing the house.

Molly is 14 mths old and is starting to say some words we can actually recognize! She says: Daddy, bye, cracker, snack, na-na (for nursing), ama (when she want's something), Mama, Ellie, Aba (Ava), Grae-Grae, baby, cheers (we touch cups together), nana (banana), gookie (cookie), Tin-Tin (for the book), Gah (God), ay-n (amen), mm-mm (food) and more I'm sure. I love this age!

We are over halfway done painting the house and it's only the weather that is stopping us. Either it's too hot to paint or raining. I can't wait until it's over.

Well, I'm off to make dinner now. My least favorite chore of the day. Maybe I can convince one of the girls to do it. We'll see.

Wowsa....

You HAVE to see these pictures Rebecca of CatchlightsNW took of my kids. There are many, many more that she took and is currently editing. I can't wait to see them.

She is sooo talented and so very nice. My girls loved her and had fun.



You can see more of them on her blog...http://catchlightsnw.com/blog/. Scroll down one post or if you are like me, look at every single post.

If you're in the Portland/SW Washington area, I would highly suggest you book a session with her. Did I mention how talented she is?

the schoolroom

We cleaned up the schoolroom today so I could finally get pictures. Of course it doesn't look like this now. ;)

Here is the view from the stairs.


And from the otherside in the hallway.




And standing in front of the sliding glass door.


The chair I recovered in Michael Miller Dick and Jane fabric.


I love these curtains. I took yellow polka dot quilters fabric and bleached it to a mellow yellow and then used the back side to further mellow it out.


The kitchen that Brian built for Ellie and Grae. Molly plays with it everyday.


View going up the stairs. This is the kids gallery. It's just clipboards that we covered with decorative paper.


And there you go.

Fun outside...

We're prepping to paint the house this week (or we were when it decided to rain for the first time in months). I was taking a break and thought I would take pictures of the kids playing.



Ava's a little big for the slide.


I asked Grae if I could take his picture and he said I could take a picture of his Crocs. I really wanted a picture of his hair.


Extreme close up of Molly.


Ellie in her new dress.




The other girls being "boring" according to Ava.

Not a threat....

I noticed Grae had a penny in his mouth. I quickly went to him and told him to spit it out. He did.

Me: "Don't put money in your mouth. You might swallow it and it could get stuck in your throat. Or it will end up in your tummy and you would have to poop it out and that might hurt. Do you want to poop out pennies?"

Grae looked at the ground for a minute and then up at me with a big smile on his face.

Grae: "Yes."

Oh great, I'd better guard the change jar.

My pirate is 3

My sweet little boy is 3. I love him so much that everyday I want to just eat him up. When I tell him this, he just tells me I can eat his arm and then he can have a hook.

So what did my birthday boy want? Let's see if you can guess....yep, a pirate ship, a pirate cake, a pirate shirt, oh and a Spiderman shirt. He has no idea who Spiderman is except that his colors are red and blue.

Brian took the morning off and escorted Grae, Ellie and Ava to the Children' Museum. The even rode Max all the way there and back(our lightrail tram thing). When they arrived home, it was Grae's naptime. Then the fun began. Ava and I decorated his pirate hat cake. Maddie actually made the cake but the recipe she used made the cake crumbly. So Ava and I did the best we could and it was delicious but not very pretty.



He was thrilled and kept opening the refrigerator to see it. Like 20 times an hour. After dinner couldn't come fast enough for him.

Look at that face:


He ended up with a pirate sword and knight shield from Brian, an amazing pirate birthday card (with $15 in it) from Grandpa B and 3 birthday spankings from me. We haven't a clue where the shield ended up, the sword isn't far from him and the pirate birthday card goes under his pillow at night.

Happy Birthday Grae - please stop growing up.

We don't like Bratz

Overheard at our house:

Grae to Ellie: "Put down my pirate sword down or I'll get you a Bratz doll for your birfday."

Ellie promptly dropped it. She may have shuddered at the notion of owning one of those nasty looking dolls.

Hey, it's July!

Wow, it's July and my last blog post was June, oops. This will probably be a totally random blog post as I'll just type as I think.


First, Molly is walking! There's nothing cuter than a baby walking with their hands up in the air for balance, a big smile on their face and a staggering step. She loves this new freedom. She thinks she's quite the big girl! I do have a video of her first steps and maybe I'll get that posted later.

Graedon is such a good boy. Just yesterday I gave him a pop tart (I know but they were on sale) and I reached back in the package to give Ellie one. I turned to hand it to Ellie when I noticed that Grae had split his in half and gave one half to Ellie. So sweet. Molly has a runny nose right now and I was looking for a "snot" rag. Grae piped up, "I have one." He got it out and wiped Molly's nose for me!

He is sure to tell us if a boy hits one of his sisters, he will protect them and hit the boy and tell him to leave his sister alone. That's my boy! However he does embellish the story sometimes and tells me that he will have a flaming pirate sword and will run after the bad boy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a completely unrelated note, what's up with this? I admit that I think sposies are gross now but this is one of the most disgusting things I have seen. You change the pad at the back but leave the diaper on. Pampers claims that the moisture is pulled to the back leaving the front stay dry. How? Magic? There has to be some urine soaked in the front. I'm going to buy some stock in Desitin as this is sure to give babies/toddlers even more diaper rash. Do you know that ever since Molly has been in cloth, she has not had one diaper rash? I'm sure it's because her skin can breathe in the cotton or bamboo and we change her right after she wets.

Anyway, they are trying to promote this as a quick thing to do. Hey you don't even have to look or interact with your child to change their diapers. Wohoo! I don't know about you and your baby but Molly and I have fun at diaper changes. I sing to her, play short games and give her lots of kisses. Okay, done with that rant. ;)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We've been having fun in school lately. I really enjoy teaching the girls. (we do school year round so no summer break). Our science curriculum is really good. It's Apologia and the Exploring Creation series. Very comprehensive but understandable. I love doing the experiments with the girls. The best thing is that it acknowledges God as creator. Very important to us as we do not seek to seperate God from our studies. That would be impossible as God made 2+2=4, as well as ordered history, made all things, created language, laws of science, etc.

I'm going to be adding an art series to our school program but I need to find a time to squeeze it in. The following may not seem like a lot but it takes all morning to get through. We don't do these all on the same day.

Right now we're doing (with links):
Saxon math 65 (Maddie and Ava)
Saxon 76 (Lauren)
Student Writing Intensive Group B (Lauren, Maddie, Ava)
Exploring Astronomy (Maddie & Ava)
Apologia General Science (Lauren)
Proverbs study (Lauren, Maddie, Ava)
Catechisms (all kids)
Veritas Press History: Ancient Greece and Rome
Beginning reading/writing (Ellie)
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (Lauren, Maddie, Ava)

Will be adding back Shurley Grammar 7
Lauren will be starting Traditional Logic

We just finished a world geography course and will be adding in a poetry course. There is so much more that I want to do but it's so hard with Grae, Ellie and Molly awake and roaming the house, lol.

Okay so this post was totally random and I've had to get up 4 times to tell the girls to be quiet so Grae can sleep. Off to make Bri and I some dinner or at least to dish up the low carb cheesecake ;)

Happy Birthday Molly!

Yes, Molly is one. We made it and we both survived the first year. I'll let you in on a little secret. I don't really enjoy the first 6 mths after having a baby. Don't get me wrong, I love my children dearly from the first moment I lay eyes on them (even before), and woe to anyone that comes between me and my chillin's, but if they could come out already sitting and smiling and not crying so much in the evenings, I would be set. (was that the longest run on sentence ever?)

Anyway, Molly had a few strikes against her from the get go. First, I didn't even want to be pregnant (oops) and second I wanted another boy. It's a great thing she was a great baby and being cute doesn't hurt.

So what's Molly doing now? Well she's not walking yet. I'm not sure why. All of my kids have walked by 11 months (10 months for Ellie) and certainly by their first birthday. She takes steps and she walks holding on to our hand but chooses to sit down and crawl.

She is finally wanting to eat table food but still loves to nurse. She'll say "nigh, nigh, na" when she wants to nurse. Translation: nigh-night nurse. As in what she does at nap/bedtime or anytime really. I'm loathe to wean her as it helps me lose weight. But the day will come in the next few months. I'll milk it for all it's worth (pun intended).

Here's her favorite spring pastime, having Ellie pick her peas, open them up and feed them to her.






Notice how tiny they are! The kids can't wait until they are big and plump.


Grae wanted me to take his picture. He's a knight wearing a pirate shirt.


Molly ate her birthday banana We have to call everthing that they eat on their birthday the "birthday" this and that.


And birthday tearing the couch apart playing (which they do every.single.day).


Ava made her a banana bread cake which was promptly devoured by the kids. I think Molly got a piece. We didn't get Molly anything for her birthday (bad parents). Well we did make a rather large payment to the van to help get it payed off. She rides in comfort and in semi-style so there you go.

I'm really looking forward to this year with Molly. I can't imagine life here without her. She's really fun and really, really fun to kiss and cuddle. Happy Birthday Miss Molly Kate.

A thing I never thought I would say...

To Grae:

"Don't stick bagels in between your toes."

and then even worse...

"Don't eat bagels with your feet."

What things have you said that you never thought you would have too?

Back from vacation!

We spent all last week at the beach (Garibaldi) for our church's annual Family Camp. Just picture: sleeping in nice cabins, two bathrooms (we have one bathroom here so it was a luxury, lol), all meals provided for (fresh bread at every meal), nothing to do all day except pretty much what we wanted. They did have scheduled activities for the kids. This was Grae and Molly's first family camp and they did very well.

Can you believe I didn't get any pictures? I take that back, I did get some pics in the cabin while we were waiting for the breakfast bell to ring. Want to see them?

A regular sight.


So was this. "Can I have a juice box, pleeeeease."


Molly trying to get into my lap as I was backing up trying to take her picture. Yes that is Grae's pirate sword next to her. We wouldn't dare leave it at home.


Ava following her.


Grae wanting to eat pirate cereal (Captain Crunch.)


And my big accomplishment. I cloth diapered the whole time we were there! Wohoo!




It was a very fun trip but we were so tired when we got home. We actually skipped church on Sunday and slept on and off all day. I'm caught up on the laundry so that's nice. Oh and I lost a pound while I was there. I really watched the carbs and tried to drink plenty of water. Plus we had to walk everywhere. So now to start saving $$ for next year!

Oh my...

So my last post was about how we just got over head colds and then we were hit with the stomach flu. Monday night Brian complained of his stomach hurting and within a few hours Maddie and Lauren were throwing up. The next day was Ellie's turn followed by Graedon, Molly and Ava. I was feeling pretty proud that I didn't get it when Thursday came along and I got it.

The funny (or not so funny) thing is about 20 families in our church got the same thing at the same time. Thankfully the bug is short lived and we're all feeling much better. I lost 2.5 pounds in 1 day! Not a great way to lose weight and I'm sure it will come back when I feel up to eating.

---------------------------
On another note, in an effort to remember the cute things my children say, here's one by Graedon.

We were watching the Pirates of Penzance again and the song was "how pitiful his tale, how rare his beauty...." in reference to a particularly handsome pirate with a sad story. This is repeated several times.

Graedon turned to me and said "Mommy?".

"Yes."

"Pirates don't have tails."

I had to stop and think for a moment and then agreed with him. I'm sure he didn't understand what I found so funny.

My family...

Feeling better. Last week we dealt with: viral bronchitis (Molly & Graedon), high fevers, headaches, massive head congestion, coughing and some vomiting. Should this happen in late May? I don't think so. I was certain we had left the cold/flu season behind.

Saturday was a nice day so we all went outside. None of us had much energy but Brian felt strongly that we had to get our tomatoes/zuchinni and eggplants in the ground. He wanted to divide the garden boxes by making some new boxes. And who better to help than Ellie.





She did like any self respecting carpenter would do and hit her finger.


She decided to go join Molly in the dirt.


Earlier in the week Grae was climbing in the playhouse and fell. He banged his eye pretty well but didn't seem to torn up about it. A few days after that event, the whole bottom of his eye turned black and blue. I just now got a picture of it and you can barely see it. His first black eye!


Lauren was doing what she always does.


I'm not sure what Maddie and Ava were doing. I think Ava was sleeping on the couch as she had a bad headache.

Here's Molly. Boy that kid loves being outside. I broke out my 50mm lens for these shots (I love that lens).

Bamboo velour diaper pinning tutorial

Starring the ever lovable and cute Molly.

My Boy...

"Mommy, can I marry you?"


"No Grae, I'm already married to Daddy."


"Did he hug you and marry you and kiss you like a princess?"


"Yes, something like that."

Imaginations

I came across this scene the other day....



Me: "I wonder what she's holding?"

Ellie: "Maybe it's a dead parrot."

Me: "It's not a dead parrot."

Grae: "It's a gun."

Me: "It's not a gun. She looks sad so maybe she was supposed to go to the ball but the evil stepmother wouldn't let her."

Ellie: "Yeah and now she's feeding her bird poison."

Me: "What? What shows have you been watching?"

Ellie: "None, but we could watch Cinderella 3 if you let us."

Grae: "No, let's watch 3 dog dalmation dog (101 Dalmations)."

Me: "We're not watching any movies or shows. Go play, do something fun."

And you know what? They actually did!



I love it when they play together!

An hour with Molly

Molly doesn't walk yet but she gets around very well. She has taken to exploring all over and opening any doors that she can find.

We start in the dining room:


After I said "Molly".


Next to the school room where she wanted to "help" with folding socks. These were all nice and organized before she got a hold of them.


Then reading a book.




I'm not so much trouble, mom. Look at this face...

Graedon's world...

Lauren: "Grae, do you want a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch?"

Grae: "No, I want a boy-ed cheese sandwich." He pronounces "girl", "grill."

later on...

Grae: "Oh look, it's boy-ing!" (instead of grilling).

-----------------------------------------------------
One of our Westminster Shorter catechism question/answers is "Who wrote the Bible?". The correct answer is "Chosen men who wrote by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."

Graedon knows this but the "chosen men" part is abstract for him. Who are they? Sometimes they are bad guys, as in, the "chosen men" did it. The other day they were the Presidents of the United States. Grae got out our children's encyclopedia and saw a couple of pages that listed portraits of all the Presidents. He told Maddie, "look chosen men." Well I guess they are. We believe God chooses Presidents so in a way they are chosen. Just not the chosen men who wrote the Bible!

Molly again

Molly is 9 months old and finally getting fun. She's getting past the helpless-carry-me-around-all -day stage. She's an explorer and figured out she can climb the stairs. Her leg is always kicking up to climb anything.

She's still nursing full time and isn't that interested in food. She'll eat crackers or whatever her sisters are having but then wants down to crawl.

Molly loves sleeping with us at night. She goes to bed in her crib (which is at the foot of our bed) around 8:00 pm. We sneak in there, walking in slow motion around 10:30 pm. Oh so quietly do we pull the covers back and slowly slide into bed. Up pops Molly's head. She looks at us like "excuse me, didn't you forget something?" I'll nurse her and slide her up between us. She turns and grabs my pillowcase and swings her arm behind her to touch her Dad's arm and falls asleep. It's really cute but slightly annoying. At least she's not a bed hog and pretty much stays where she's at.


Here she is giving the impish look that we love.


Trying to get up on the chair.

I don't know what to title this...

So we had our gas hot water heater installed last week, a Rheem 50 gallon. Beauty isn't it. The guy that came out to install it asked if we bought the house 2 years ago in January. Uh - yes we did, why? He told me that he and his wife looked at our house and make an offer but the offer right before theirs was accepted. Oh that would be us! Gulp - was he bitter? Is he going to rig the water heater to let noxious and deadly gas permeate the house and kill us? Nope - he was great and spent 6 hours installing it. Works perfectly and we aren't dead. Yay! No more electric water heater and no more paying PGE (our energy company known by me as Pretty Greedy Energy) to suck our checking account dry heating water.


The one thing I can't resist. I really don't like ice cream but when we have this in the house, I don't stop until I feel so sick. Why do we have it in our house? Ava and I went grocery shopping and we were coming close to the ice cream aisle. I jokingly told Ava that we could get some ice cream as long as they had Tillamook Mudslide and only if it was on sale. The particular grocery store doesn't carry mudslide all the time so I thought I was safe. Uh-no. Not only did they have it but it was on sale for under $3.00. So I put it in the cart, got home and ate way to much.


Ellie is our genius. She's 4 and already reading and writing. I teach her the phonograms and help her to write the letters correctly and the girls quiz her and write words for her to read. She loves it and I love the help. Now we find little notes all over the house from her. Some make sense and some don't but it's cute.


Maddie giving me a taste of my own medicine. I made her delete the pics she took ;)

Graedon loves to talk about anatomy. He talks in a matter of fact way as Brian and I are trying not to laugh. The other day I was teaching school when Ellie ran in to the school room and yelled "Graedon's going potty standing up, he's spraying everywhere!" Maddie got there first and grabbed a towel, while I firmly told Grae that he will not stand up to go potty again. He kept saying "I'm just like Daddy, right?" So that explains why he said to me the other day "I stand up and hold my *blank* (edited so people searching for the word don't come here, but you get the drift) and go potty just like Daddy does." Spraying down the toilet isn't the worst he's done lately. He tried to go poop standing up as well. I'll spare you the picture of little nuggets flying everywhere.

Tonight he tried to convince me that God will give him "breastfeeders" when he gets older. I repeatedly told him no, only moms have them. He didn't buy it and gently patted me on the shoulder like he was sorry I wasn't as wise as he.

Learning a foreign language....

Brian decided that the girls needed to learn a foreign language. Neither of us know any (unless you count abbreviations on forums). I took 3 years of Spanish but still only remember my numbers, the alphabet and a few misc. words.

However, just because we don't know something doesn't stop us from trying, faking or making something up.

Brian: "I'm going to teach you some phrases in another language."

Girls: "Okay." Why they didn't ask which language, I don't know.

Brian: "Repeat after me....Owha tador kiam..."

Girls: "Owha tador kiam."

Brian: "Good, now faster."

Girls: "Ohwa tador kiam...Daddy!" said with much rolling of the eyes.

Well, we tried.

Back from the dead..

Well, it looks like we'll live. I wasn't so sure a few days ago. This virus is nasty and we're still pretty tired from it. In fact, around lunch time I gave Molly to Lauren because my eyes were burning. I laid on the couch and 20 minutes later woke up. Oops! I actually got the sewing machine out and worked on making diapers while the girls watched Pirates of Penzance. Have you seen that movie? Totally cheesy but enjoyable.


A sign we need to go to Disneyland? Is God using chocolate chips to tell us something? The only way we would get to Disneyland is if someone gave us some money as all of ours is currently spoken for.

The weather is starting to warm up and sometimes we see sun. With the nicer weather comes the familiar pull of home renovation. Currently I'm working on painting our tv stand, recovering some lamp shades, making school room curtains, recovering the school room chairs & peg boards and trying to save some money for a new school room rug. We're going to go with the Flor system as you can wash each square fabric tile and put it back down.


I'm also working on expanding my diaper sewing business. I've had 3 offers from stores that want to carry my products and everytime I list some on Hyena Cart, they sell out in less than a minute. My friend Bev is sewing some diapers for me and I asked another lady from my church to help out as well. Then I got sick and everything came to a halt. But since I care about life again, back to work, lol. Brian has all these crazy ideas about what I need to do, but he always does, and I largely ignore them. Not being disrespectful here, I promise. It's just when you live with an idea guy, you can't possibly implement them all. I take the good ones and just nod politely to the rest.

Anyway, Molly is trying her best to eat every single thing off the floor so I better go vacuum her mouth out. I'm kidding. Well sort of, I should probably see what's in there though.

Eat a lime

We took the kids to the Children's Musuem for a pirate party. The reason we went was Captain Bogg & Salty, the kids first pirate concert. We listen to the cd almost everyday and I actually enjoy it. Here's a link to their site and music video.



I had to make Grae a pirate outfit so I started two days before. I made the shirt and appliqued Yar on it. I also made his pirate hat and pants. The pants are sailor style with buttons on the sides. Buttons that Graedon picked out and made sure I sewed on.



Here are some pics from the museum that Lauren took.







Graedon's favorite, the crocodile from Peter Pan ;)



This is before the concert. No pictures turned out during the concert because of poor lighting.



He was really excited by the concert and fell asleep several times. After the concert he met Captain Bogg and shook "hooks" with him. He wanted to stay and chat but we had to get Brian to work.

It was fun and exhausting. Grae and Molly took really long afternoon naps that day which was my favorite part.

Nice boy...

After tonights dinner and I got out the "nice" chocolate to split with all the family. Graedon and I were in the living room and the rest of the family were in the school room. I carefully broke up 6 pieces and asked Graedon if he would go hand them out.

His response..."no, I'm not a nice boy." He wanted all the chocolate for himself!

He did hand them out, stuffed his chocolate in his mouth and then came back to ask for more. Who do you think got another piece when no one else did?

Sometimes I struggle...

I noticed that lately when I sit around on the floor and watch my kids play, I feel a slight resentment. Like I should be doing something better with my life. Like I'm just wasting time and could be doing the laundry, sewing, working on my websites.

I didn't feel this way when my first 3 were small. I sat around with them and played and didn't think twice about it. I also didn't have 3 business to run, a house to clean and homeschooling to do.

Nevertheless, I tell myself that I'm a stay at home mom for a reason. I don't want someone else raising my kids. I don't want to miss the firsts. I would miss my kids and do enjoy being around them all day (for the most part). They are so creative and make me so proud everyday. But I also feel happy to have my businesses. To chat with other moms with the same interests and feel like I'm providing some great services, whether to help spotlight work at home children's clothing designers or make some super squishy diapers, it's important to me.

I guess I just need to focus on the fact that my kids are only small for such a short time and I want to enjoy them. To not get upset when I'm laying on the floor and they are crawling and jumping all over me and I have other "work" to do. To stop and watch the beautiful children God gave me. I know I will want these days back when they are all grown up.

So there...my struggle put into words. I already feel better and ready to face tomorrow. I hope it's sunny and we can go for a walk together. Who cares about the laundry ;) it won't go anywhere.

Things I love...

I love the girls working together - and even better when cookies are in my future.


I love when Ava plays with Ellie - I'm not so sure that Ellie loves it.


I love that my little boy is growing up - but I'm sad too.


I love Lost (Ben & Locke are my favorite characters) and love that it's on tonight!


I love seeing Brian's car in the driveway because that means he's home and things feel whole again.

Happy Valentines Day.

Me and my Molly (at almost 8 mths old)

Uh-oh, I've been spotted.


Here she comes (she can crawl now).


Sitting in my lap and trying to grab the camera strap.

What we got in the mail today...

Yay! We got a package. I wonder what's in it.


Shredded newspaper?


A cloth bag?


Let's open the bag...


Red worms! I put them in an old Lego box.


Grae wasn't too sure about them and especially when his sister told him to touch them.


The worms are currently in my mud room and will have a permanent home outside in our compost box.

Ummm, okay?

They called it Bahamas.

Hi

This greeted me when I went to get some ice cubes from the freezer. 6 Playmobil people stuck in the ice and apparently on a Disneyland ride.

Anyway, we spent all day Saturday fighting Molly's 104 degree fever. Tylenol and Advil weren't making a dent in it. From 11 pm until 4 am, Molly cried and didn't seem to know where she was. She only wanted to be held so we took turns. Finally Sunday morning came and we decided to call our doctor. 104 seemed rather high. She told us to take Molly to the ER as she didn't have any other symptoms except the fever. Off we went.

They checked her out and decided to do a Urinary Tract Infection test. This involves putting a plasic bag on her to catch her pee. Fun stuff. After 1 hour with only a few drops, I grabbed Graedon and said "let's pray". So we prayed. "Dear Jesus, please help Molly to go potty. Open the flood gates so we can go home. Amen". Grae said a hearty "amen" and then started yelling, "Molly go potty, Molly go potty." :)

She did go potty and four hours later we were released and told it was probably viral and not a UTI or kidney infection. They told us to double the dose of tylenol and advil and that finally brought her fever down. In fact, it broke that night and now she's cool and back to normal.

I'm getting ready to write some posts about cloth diapering. Like Cloth Diapering 101. From what is a prefold to how do I wash wool....and all in pictures, lol. Stayed tuned.

What are you talking about?

I have no idea, but you sure are cute.

What happens during school...

I was teaching school at the dining room table a few days this week as our school room was getting moulding and new blue paint. It's done now (note to self: take pics) but wanted to show you what the house looks like when Grae is left to his own devices.


I have my computer and printer out as I was doing some cloth diaper shipping. He didnt touch those. But I do notice that Ellie's prized christmas doll from Grandpa B is thrown to the ground. Grae's pirate sword is laying nearby...hmm.

Here's where I found him. Looking outside. He built a pirate ship. Looks like a row of chairs to me, but he was insistent is was his ship. He did clean up his mess (well most of it. I think he talked Maddie into "helping" him)

Our morning in pictures...

This is my third blog post in one day!


Molly in her pirate 'kerchief.


Ellie is Mary and is holding baby Jesus.


Graedon is a superhero. Not sure how that fits in with the pirate, Mary, baby Jesus theme.


And look who's trying to crawl at 6 mths!


Scar face. We don't know how he got this and neither does he.

11 things about Maddie....

Happy 11th birthday Maddie Joy. Here are 11 things I observed about you.

Maddie with her birthday present, Vmigo the handheld virtual dog game, that she hasn't put down all day.

1. You are patient and kind.
2. You would be an excellent vegetarian, well if you could skip the veggies and just eat bread and sugar.
3. You love your freckles and blue eyes and are happy you look like me.
4. You figure out electronics and video games faster than any of us.
5. You just want to help everyone even if they don't want your help and kick and scream for you to leave them alone.
6. Any chance you get, you pick up Graedon and sometimes he even pretends he's a baby so you will snuggle him closer.
7. When you were born we wondered why we named you Madeline Joy as you were always crying but when you were 6 mths old you became our sunshine. We had you convinced your name was Maddie Joy Sunshine.
8. You love dogs as long as they aren't real or you have to take care of them.
9. You have a very difficult time waiting for anything.
10. You're becoming a great cook and make some mean chocolate chip cookies.
11. The family would not be the same without you.

He gets anything he wants...

Grae has me wrapped around his finger. I guess I better admit it. That boy just melts my heart. Look at that face (two posts down). We went grocery shopping tonight and passed by the candy aisle. Candy was not on my list. Grae casually mentioned wanting some and then said that "sisters would like it". Since he was so philanthropic about it I bought a bag. I would not have done that with the girls. (for the record, he also wanted donuts and I said no.)

I don't let him get away with being disobedient or disrespectful but the little things like a cookie before lunch somehow slips past me ;)

Guess who's getting a tooth?

Too cute...

Really a little busy...

I'm so busy right now, along with the rest of you! Tonight is the church Christmas play and all the girls are in it. That means 4 costumes! Just finishing up Ellie's today. Ava was an angel last year and so Ellie will be wearing Ava's old costume. I just need to shorten it and we'll be good to go.

Lauren is leaving after the play to spend the weekend with two of her best friends. They go to our church so she'll be delivered to us on Sunday. What will it be like without her for 2 days? We'll see!

My laptop screen died and we thought it would be $400 to fix it (as the local fix it shop told Brian), however we found a brand new one on eBay for $158 shipped. It should be here on Tuesday. Brian can install it.

So I had better get to Ellie's costume while Molly is sleeping. You know the minute I sit down to sew she'll wake up ;)

Another overheard at my house...

Grae is passionate about clementines. He eats about 6 of them a day.

Maddie: "Grae, it's breakfast time."
Grae: "No, it's lemontime (clementine)".

We also listen to him talk about paki. We have no idea who or what paki is. One day he's a puppet that lives outside in a paki house and now he's on cookie dough. I wish we knew what on earth Grae is talking about. 2 year olds are sooo fun!

Overheard at our house....

Ellie: "Daddy, do you like cream cheese?"
Brian: "On occasion."
Ellie: "No, do you like it on toast?"

See what we've been up too.

Come check out the photo tutorials my daughters have been doing for Journal Modiste's Handmade Holidays!

http://www.journalmodiste.com/index.cfm?page=tutorials.

Also I'm starting a new venture/business: http://www.pbellie.com

Still a pirate...

Grae is still obsessed with pirates. Every boat he sees is a pirate ship. Anyone who carries a sword is a pirate. He even knows the term scallywag. Here he is talking to me about Captain Hook and fighting or something.

I'm teaching Ellie and Grae the Westminster Shorter Catechism (kid friendly version) and one question is "Who is God". The correct answer is "God is a Spirit and doesn't have a body like men." Grae answered Captain Hook. Now I'm hoping in his little 2 year old mind that he meant, God is in control and not God is an evil villian who wears a peg leg and a hook.

We also prayed. He was to repeat after me. I start: "Dear Jesus, thank you that I.." He repeats: "Dear Jesus, thank you that eyepatch..." I couldn't even finish I was laughing so hard.

Now pirates aren't the most wholesome thing for Grae to get attached too. We'll gradually try to encourage him to explore acutal heros but for now it's just fun!

Ask and you shall receive

Maddie asked Graedon (2 yrs) what he wanted for lunch, to which he relpied "no."

So Ava made him this:

Glasses

Both Ava and Lauren need reading glasses. Guess how much I had to pay? $200? Nope. $100? Nope. $50? Nope. I paid $20 each for them. Insurance came through this time!

Lauren and the Dr. picked out her glasses. Ava and I picked out hers. Ava really wanted purple frames but they didn't have any. This is the closest we got. Green with some purple in them.

Oh and I never call them four eyes in school, 'cause you know, that would be immature. Ahem...

A poop day....

Wool knit longies by Brandy's Boutique

So most days lately are what I would term "bad". I think it is because my expectations of what I want to accomplish are too high and when I don't get through my list, I feel defeated. When all Molly wants to do all day is be held, it's frustrating to me. It shouldn't be, afterall I'm a stay at home mom so I can be with the kids. But still...

On Friday Molly decided to poop. She's a once a week pooper and boy did she save it up. I had just put her new wool longies on her so of course she would have to blow out. I have to hand wash the wool (which I actually like) but it takes the wool pants about 3 days to dry.

Anyway, I didn't know she was going to poop when I put them on her. She had a cloth diaper prefold on underneath, no diaper cover. I was watching the kids eat their lunch when I heard Molly make these strange choking sounds. She was in my lap at the time and I turned her around to see what was wrong. Nothing. She made them again and then I heard the first of what was about 5 explosions. I'm thinking, "uh-oh, hope the prefold holds."

Finally the choking noise stopped and was replaced with a smile. She must be done. I go and peel off her pants and notice yellow mustardy poop EVERYWHERE...on her longies, on her legs, up her back. This was no runny poop but thick peanutbutter poop. Too much information? Yeah well at least I didn't take a picture.

I decided instead of using all my cloth wipes that I would get most of it off and hose her off in the tub. Problem is that is was past Graedon's naptime and he was bouncing off the walls. Well, it couldn't be avoided, he would have to wait 10 minutes. I started the bath water and put Molly in her bath seat. Graedon showed up and started peeling off his clothes and before I could tell him no, he jumped in the tub. Oh man...the water was turning a pale yellow from the leftover poop and I didn't want Grae in there. Oh, it gets better. Grae gets a very serious look on his face and says he went potty. AHHHHHH....so I drain the tub, run some fresh water, finish up the bath, get them dressed, put Grae down for his nap, feed Molly, put her to bed and try to figure out if I was going to laugh or cry. I called Brian and he laughed for me.

Hey I haven't blogged in awhile so it may as well be about poop, eh?