25 Random Things About Us

This list is going around on Facebook, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to show off snippets and pictures and stuff that's happened so that I'll be caught up once and for all...

1. Snow White graduated and went to her new school at the beginning of January. We all miss her and the kids ask when she's coming back to visit. I hear she's doing fabulously well in her new place, which was never a doubt in my mind. She'd outgrown me. :)
2. Simba thinks he is one of the big kids now and I keep finding him in weird places quicker than I think he ought to be able to get there. He was trying to scale the shelves but got down when I went for the camera.
   
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4. I've also found him on top of the table this week, but I was too busy running to get him before he leaped off the edge to get a picture of it.
5. I have a new part-time baby girl who comes on Fridays sometimes. I can't think of a good Disney name for her.
6. It is taking Aurora quite awhile to get used to the fact that she has been dethroned from the title of The Only Infant In The House Who Should Be Held All The Time And Not Have To Watch Anyone Else Be Held Or Heaven Sakes Fed!
7. The big kids divide on gender lines most days now. Duchess and Ariel want to have tea parties or play Sorry! in another room, and O'Malley and Sebastian like to hang out and smash trucks into each other.
8. Most of them have a Webkinz account and so when they go outside they want to dig for gems or else make "gak" or "gunk" and stir a bunch of mud and rocks around and paint it on stuff.
9. Ariel has become even more dramatic lately and will throw herself into sad-looking positions and whimper and peek out through her fingers to see if I've stopped the universe for her. Usually I laugh at her and take her picture. It bugs her, but most of the time snaps her out of the funk because she wants to see what she looks like.
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11. Muffin Tin Monday has become a pretty regular occurrence around here and they like trying to figure out the theme. Today we had olives, cucumber slices, hot dog slices, carrot slices, cheerios, and string cheese slices. Circles. They were pleased.
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13. Our curriculum theme for February is Blast Off! and we're all really excited about it. I've been finishing up random bits of leftover months that we never got around to, and haven't ordered a new theme box in a few months.
14. I don't think I have found one thing that Simba will not eat. The kid can put away some groceries.
15. On the flip side, most meals he eats more than both Ariel and Sebastian do all day long.
16. O'Malley and Sebastian are trying to potty train. It's in that stage where I despair of it ever happening, but I know that all of a sudden one day it just WILL and I should stop worrying about it.
    
17. Ariel is beginning to drop her nap and I let her stay up two days a week and work on school while I do kindergarten with Duchess. They are learning to skip count by tens, fives, and twos. Duchess is annoyed that Ariel is picking it up as fast as she is- she wants to be the smartest one. :)
18. Duchess loves to hold Aurora and pretend that she's her baby sister. I think she wants to keep her.
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20. I wish I had a wardrobe as cool as Aurora's.
21. I'm really excited about the supply fee this month- it's been awhile since I bought a lot of new things for the playroom.
22. I'm looking at getting this for the babies. It looks like something they will enjoy. You put them on their belly and they can spin around and play with all the different parts of it.
23. I'm not sure what direction I want to go for the big kids- Lakeshore is such an awesome place! There are a million cool things there that would make our days more fun. I think this may be at the top of my list though.
24. I'd also really like a sand and water table that I can use for moon sand, but I'm not sure how practical it would be and if we could keep the area clean enough to not drive me batty.
25. I finally feel like I might be caught up on all our goings-on!
    

Supers In the Family

A random funny conversation I heard today between Ariel and Snow White:

Ariel: Do you know about Batman?
SW: Yes!
Ariel: Why? Batman is for boys.
me: Well, you know about him because you have a brother- SW has a brother too, so she knows about it also.
SW: Yeah! My brother does Batman!

Ariel: Your brother is Batman? Whoa.....

Let Me Sum Up...

Okay, it's been a really long time since I posted! I keep thinking I should go back and do it all in order. I have cute things with Simba and Aurora as they get older, pictures of our Thanksgiving feast, other random funny conversations with the big kids... and then I get overwhelmed and I don't post at all. I may try to post some of that, or I may not get around to it.

So I'll just jump in where we are today- we're making Christmas presents for the parents. I've taken pictures of different steps of the process, and also gotten each kid to dictate the steps in the process, and so theoretically next week you should get the finished items, pictures of making it, and a hilarious "recipe" book that I suggest you don't follow exactly.

The recipes vary widely in degrees of correctness and specificity. Snow White's mom was telling me the other day that every time she asks her what she did at school today, SW tells her "I don't know." I suppose that's the early precursor to the "nothing, it was boring" answer she'll likely give in elementary school. It cracks me up though, because that was a large chunk of her recipe.

I don't know!

Honey, we just made it. You helped! Do you remember what part you worked on?

yes.

Okay good! What's in it?

I don't know...

Ariel's was very number specific and mostly correct for what she remembered, and Duchess's had more to do with what I've told them is coming up next in the process instead of what they've actually done so far. It's really fun to see how differently their minds work with the same task.

Since they may tell you "I don't know" when you ask, I don't want to put up pictures and totally spoil the surprise. Of course, they may run home and blab every detail. There's just no telling.

Thanksgiving Prep

Tomorrow we're hosting a feast. Belle will be here, since kindergarten is off for the week, and I think Tinkerbell may pop in also. All the parents are invited for lunch and we're working hard to get things ready. The mashed potatoes are done and tucked safely into the fridge, and everybody has pronounced them tasty. I stuck a bite in Ariel's mouth when she wasn't paying attention and she went, "EEEWW I don't like... hey this is yummy!" See, you gotta try things.

Everyone old enough to help did some measuring and mashing. They all had great fun.





Aurora acting as Quality Control Manager in Supervisory Capacity:

Next we're baking cornbread for dressing and chocolate cake for cakeballs. YUM.

Nature Walk

It's pretty windy out today, but warm in the sunshine, so we all went for a walk this morning. They all have their favorite things to look for. Simba loves the wind and makes faces at it and opens his mouth to feel it on his tongue. O'Malley is obsessed with rabbits and squirrels and most especially dogs barking. Sebastian likes to look for airplanes. Duchess wants to walk up a certain street and see if Rex the cat is outside. Snow White picks every dandelion she sees along the way. Ariel does all those things, and then usually throws in a little something every time that adds depth to the conversation.

She had gotten tired of running in front of the stroller and was walking with me and "helping" me push it, chattering nonstop. She noticed that the moon is visible today and so we talked about that for a little while. I'm really going to need to brush up on all my scientific facts to talk to these kids. They're asking some good questions these days! She wanted to know why it was there during the day. Then she noticed that it's a half moon right now and that freaked her right out.

"The moon! What happened? The moon! It break'd!"

Um, I was an English and history major. Skimmed through science. I told her the whole moon is always really there, but sometimes we can't see parts of it because it's in the shadow of the earth. I hope that's right, or at least close enough for a four year old. So then we talked about how the moon spins around the earth and the earth spins around the sun, but we can't feel it, and when you see the clouds moving, they're not- we are. But there aren't any clouds today and she wanted to know where they went. Beats me.

I need to rent a Magic School Bus video or something. Not for them- for ME. Duchess is always telling me things I didn't remember from science class that Ms. Frizzle teaches her.

The duct tape leaf belt is way more my speed. I think we'll do that on our next walk and avoid all this heavy discussion. :)

Counting

Just for the heck of it, I asked everybody to count to 100. I don't really expect them to be able to, except for Duchess, since it's in her kindergarten curriculum and she's been working a lot on it lately. It's a good thing for them all to know though, for sure. :) Maybe I'll post every now and then with updates to see how we're all coming along.

Duchess: She skipped #20, but then got everything else, and actually counted up to 109 for good measure.

Ariel: She skipped #17 and #20, counted up to 39, and then said 100.

Snow White: She counted up to 15, got to 20 with a little prompting, and then started giggling and saying 51! 32! what? I don't know what comes next!

Sebastian: He can count to 20, skipping #16 this time. He usually skips a different teen number every time.

O'Malley: Wow. He can't count. :) He's mine, so I can say that. I started trying to count his fingers and said ONE.... and he looked at me blankly and giggled and screamed NO and ran away. Some work could definitely be done in that area.

We have lots of fun sorting and counting activities, and they've been focusing tons on art and dressup lately. I think I'll direct them toward some math-type stuff in the next few weeks.

If One Is Good, Then Eight Is Better!

I went to Costco over the weekend and stocked up on fruit and veggies. Silly me, I left the pears on the floor while I figured out where to put all this stuff. O'Malley went to town, and I'm told by several unreliable sources that Snow White helped, but she denies any participation.

We've been eating pears for snacks like crazy the last day or two- I'm cutting off the bite marks and trying to foist these off on the family. :)

Picture Day

Earlier this week a photographer came to the house to take pictures of the kids. It was quite the interesting experience. He set up a huge backdrop in the living room and we took some group shots and then individual and sibling shots of most of the kids. The girls did much better than the boys- Sebastian refused to smile but they did manage to get a few cute "tough serious guy" poses. O'Malley pretty much got nothing good. He screamed a lot and then demanded that I take his sweater off, so he was running around with no shirt on and the best looking picture they got of his face has a nekkid chest attached. :) Oh well. Authenticity.

Personally I was hoping for more candid shots and interesting poses and making silly faces. I think they did a good job and we got some nice pictures- I just had something more informal in mind.

Here's a teaser:

The girls wanted to dress up- Snow White brought her new pink dress, and we raided the dressup box for Ariel and Duchess. There were plenty other princess dresses- I have no idea what made Duchess decide to wear the flight suit. I think that's the first time she's ever put it on.

We got lots of really cute shots of Ariel.

I love this one of Simba- the look on his face is so cute.


I think a group shot with seven children looking pleasant is a miraculous thing. I was pretty impressed. And this was the best we got of O'Malley all day.


Snow White- she's the one I wish most had gotten to jump around and be candid- her personality is so vivid that I feel like you don't get a good vision of her when you make her sit still. :) That's not to say it isn't a good picture- she pretty much doesn't take bad ones. It just doesn't capture her spirit the way I would have personally liked to see.


Sebastian. He smiled for about thirty seconds, so they got a couple good shots off.

He didn't want to take any pictures with his sister either.


Then he was done. Very done. I tend to like the serious ones better than the cheesy smiles though, and they got a series of these that I think are adorable. He looks kind of beat down and annoyed, but also like a tough guy who's just too cool for these dumb pictures.


O'Malley, after fleeing the scene and shedding his good clothes. He's watching Dora the Explorer and that's my old blue couch he's sitting on. The photographer used the zoom lens from across the room because the poor boy would scream every time the camera got close.


His sister, who posed much more nicely.


The one lone shot of both of them. At least he isn't crying, although I don't think you could say he looks happy.


Hail to the Princess Aurora!

Channeling Bon Qui Qui

The big kids crack me up. I wish I could just follow them around with a tape recorder all day to catch the weird conversations they have with each other. I'm sure I don't hear half the things they say. I caught some stuff yesterday that has made me laugh again every time I think of it. Bon Qui Qui's customer service has nothing on these girls!

Our play kitchen is missing the plastic sheet that goes across the back of the refrigerator, so sometimes when you put food away it slides out the other side. They have discovered that if somebody stands on one side and somebody goes to the other, they can open the freezer and use it like a drive-through window. There is usually a line of kids on one side waiting for "food" and then a chef in the kitchen creating meals and handing stuff across. It's funny.

Ariel goes up and asks for "a taco shell with butter on it. BUTTER! Don't forget the butter, Snow White, I like it with butter!"

Snow's busy back there for a minute, hunting through our stash of plastic food for something resembling a taco shell, and finding nothing she passes empty air back- "Here you go Ariel, your taco with butter..." said in this voice that indicates such a thing is disgusting, but you're the customer so whatever.....

"This does NOT have butter! I said to put butter!" while inspecting the empty air and passing it back through disdainfully.

"Yes it does, see! Butter! it's right there!"

Ariel wanted to argue about it some more and Snow White was brilliant-

"Yook. I gotta yotta customers. I give you da food. You go away now. It's Sebastian's turn."

At least she didn't say she was going to cut her. :)

Influence of the Backyardigans?

The girls have been doing lots of really interesting imaginative play lately. I was in the kitchen cutting up nectarines and listening to them chatter. I couldn't figure out what was going on until I looked in on them-

Snow White was lying on her stomach on the floor screaming, "Huww-y! Da cwocodiwes ah going to EEEET MMMMEEEEEEE!" and holding onto Duchess's ankles.

Duchess was inching forward on her belly with Snow White hanging on her, while in turn grabbing hold of the toy vacuum and yelling at Ariel.

Ariel, the tiniest one, was in the front of the rescue line, pulling on the vacuum with all her might and trying to remove both her friends from the gaping maw of the "cwocodiwes." All we needed was a cliff and a raging river, and they'd be Indiana Jones and his team. Or Uniqua, Pablo, and friends...

I love this job.

Muffin Tin Monday- Bread and Jam for Frances

I'm starting Muffin Tin Monday this week- the grand and lofty goal is to do it every week, though I might not always play along with the correct theme. I think it's such a cool idea, and a novel way to hook kids into eating something they might not otherwise. (Ariel's eating tomato soup! Holy Cow!)

This week I wanted to use a children's book as our theme, so we read Bread and Jam For Frances this morning and made a big list of all the foods they talked about in the book. We found:

• eggs
• bread and jam
• veal cutlet
• baked potatoes
• orange juice
• toast
• cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches
• pickle
• milk
• grapes
• tangerine
• spaghetti and meatballs
• tomato soup
• celery
  
• carrots
• black olives
• plums
• cherries
• vanilla pudding

Quite a good list to work from. The idea is not to have to do anything crazy- just stuff you already have.

With six kids around the table, I took three muffin tins and filled six cups each. It works out well to have the oldest and youngest share, then the next, then the two middle kids. They can help each other, and it also happens to be a picky eater and a good eater in each team.

Duchess and O'Malley shared a tin,

Snow White and Sebastian shared another,

and Marie and Ariel shared another.

We ate tomato soup, black grapes, tangerines, bread and jam, green beans, and cheddar cheese since I didn't have any eggs and we needed some protein.

Everyone had a great time and actually ate something. Next week is supposed to be a Halloween theme, and I may do something original if I can think of it. If not, I'll go through the muffin tin archives and borrow a good idea. :)

We all need a reason to look forward to Monday!

Snow White One-Liners That Make Me Smile

My dad came in the other day and Snow White ran up to him yelling about her new tattoo and how he should look at it. He said, "Cool! Is it of your mother?"

I laughed and laughed and she looked extremely perplexed. NO! It's Diego!


This huge dragonfly sat on my porch wall for over an hour. I should have put something else in the picture to show the scale- it was almost as big as my hand. Everyone kept staring at it and talking about it and after awhile Snow came to talk to me, all worried. I love the way she sometimes talks in questions, and then other times she takes things that ought to be questions and phrases them as statements. It makes her really fun to listen to.

"That bug? That one on the wall? He is taking a nap? Or else he is dead!"

I opened the door to check and he flew off. She was pleased to know he wasn't dead and yet simultaneously highly annoyed at me for scaring him away.

Swirly Crayons

Last week we made swirly crayons. All the girls are really into basic art supplies right now- we're way behind on our "curriculum" because what they want to do is cut, glue, and color. Want to do a Mother Goose Time craft? NO! Can we have some white paper? Usually I don't stress out about that- it works their fine motor skills and creativity and they're having a good time and so we sit around the table and cut and color. Of course, you can't send home a project that ends up looking like this:

Process, not product.... Process, not product..... :)

They were working hard on this task, yet again, and I decided to sort through our enormous bucket of colors and pull out all the broken ones. They never want to peel the paper and don't like to use the broken ones and since they keep asking me to open new boxes, our crayon situation was getting a little out of control. I googled the basic recipe for melting and remaking crayons, and then I started peeling paper and putting broken pieces in my muffin tin.

And oh my, the girls were intrigued. They got busy helping and we sat at the table for a whole HOUR while we all talked and peeled paper. It was really fun. Makes me think I should get a bunch of corn on the cob or purple hull peas or something. Make 'em earn their keep!


We baked them at 350 until they melted, and then put them straight into the freezer for about 45 minutes, and then they popped right out of the tin. Everyone had a great time making rainbows and swirly drawings.

I keep meaning to send each of them home with a muffin top crayon and I keep forgetting. They turned out really well!

And then that afternoon O'Malley flushed a ball down the toilet so we got to watch the plumber unbolt the toilet from the floor and carry it into the yard. Such a very interesting day. Art class? Free. Plumber? Not so much...

Pigtails

Earlier this week I was in the mood to fix hair. I brushed Snow White's and put it up in pigtails while the other girls were resting. When they saw her, they immediately demanded that I do theirs as well. I'm not the best at it, but hey, at least I got a lot of practice in one day!

Ariel, Snow White, Duchess, and Tinkerbell- rocking the pigtails!

This Does Not Bode Well

Snow White: I smell poop.
Duchess: That's not poop. It's our lunch.
Snow White. NO! What is she cooking? It's poop! Not lunch!
Duchess: (coming over to see in the pan) It's not poop, right Mom? It's lunch?
Me: Yes. I'm making quesadillas. You're smelling tortillas and butter. NOT poop.
Duchess: Well, it smells like poop if you BURN it.
Me: Shut up. I did not burn lunch.
Duchess: You shouldn't tell me to shut up.
Me: You're right. But I'm not burning lunch. And you like quesadillas.

Mr. Potato Squid

Snow White was so excited to show me her creation.

"YOOK!  YOOK, I make a SQUID!"

What Is It?

There is a little something living inside the Little Tikes house in the yard. O'Malley and Snow White discovered it and both screamed- Snow ran out and O'Malley was stuck in there with it, afraid to get past it. I was worried it was a snake or something the way they were carrying on, but no. Small furry something.

I think it's a mouse- that seems most logical, but they're all convinced it's a rabbit. They say the ears are too long for a mouse. The body and fur look like mouse to me though.

It doesn't run away when you get close. I actually pet it when they weren't looking, after I told them all how dirty it probably was, and a wild animal, and under no circumstances were any of them to touch it. (and yes, I washed my hands....) I want to scoop it up and bring it in the house for a pet. I probably won't though. I'm guessing it's sick, or at least a runt of some litter, and I don't want to introduce the "death of a pet" thing just yet.

I know the pictures are blurry, it's hard to see it. It kept burrowing its face into the grass and then the camera wanted to focus on the grass instead of the animal. What do you think it is?

Marketing

So I pose this question:

If you couldn't read, which of these would you assume is the strawberry cereal?


Why do they insist on putting pictures of strawberries on the spoon when it's a "healthier" kind of cereal? Is it supposed to illustrate that you'll need to add something to make it taste better, or what? I had the hardest time trying to explain to Snow White and Ariel that the OTHER one was strawberry flavored, and that the corn bran doesn't actually have any strawberries in the box. They didn't believe me at all, of course, and why would they? I mean, look at the box. People trying to sell you things are always telling the truth, right?

Sunshine S'mores

One of the extra ideas in our sunshine unit was to make s'mores. It pains me to realize that it's hot enough to do that. We probably could have fried eggs too. Anyway, this morning we set out to test melting points and make tasty snacks.

We got them assembled inside and set them out on the picnic table. It didn't take very long at all before the chocolate was VERY melted. The marshmallows got a little softer but they didn't actually melt. We talked a little bit about heat and melting and why the chocolate was messier, but they didn't much care. I can't blame them. Those things were good!

I can't believe Sebastian actually ate it. It's the first time I've seen him do something really messy without complaining about needing to wipe up.


Our friend who used to come here a couple years ago dropped in to visit this morning. He was highly pleased to find that there were treats.

Snow White was quite perplexed to find all this chocolate running down her arm. I didn't get pictures of her licking it all off, but it was really funny to watch her try to make her tongue reach that far.

We ate them outside and wiped up as best we could, and then came inside and had spaghetti for lunch. There was a large ongoing conversation regarding all the laundry everybody's mommy would have to do tonight. Sorry 'bout that.

Say What You Mean

O'Malley: Mo kah-kah!
Me: You need some more crackers, O'Malley?
O: (shaking his head no firmly with a big smile) NO!
Me: Okay. You mean yes.
(I pour him more. He starts to eat.)
Snow White: He say no. Why you give him more?
Me: Well, he doesn't understand sometimes which word to use. He means yes.
Snow: But he say no. He shake his head like THIS. NO!
Me: I know. He's confused.
Snow: He not need crackers! He say NO!

Meanwhile, O'Malley's chomping away happily on the second helping, which he definitely did want. Poor Snow. Confusion is no fun.